


What's Stopping You?

by SeeMaree



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Season 3 episode 8, and making gilbert blythe cry, gilbert and anne at queens together, mostly just angst, queens era, talk about your feelings gilbert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:20:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29116638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeMaree/pseuds/SeeMaree
Summary: What if Gilbert stops to talk to someone else before confronting Anne at the ruins? And what if that conversation sends events turning in a slightly different direction...Canon divergent from episode 3x08, if Bash had given Gilbert the blunt truth he needed to hear. Stretching from that night after the Queens entrance exam and on into the next year while both Anne and Gilbert attend Queens.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Sebastian "Bash" Lacroix, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 73
Kudos: 128





	1. Chapter 1

“He laid it all out on a platter for me. The Sorbonne, Paris, Winifred.”

“What’s stopping you then?” 

The dangerous undertone should’ve clued Gilbert in, but he was too caught up in his own head, pacing back and forth, stewing in a queasy mix of fear and excitement. 

“Well, that’s…” he sighed and sat down, slumping forward to stare at the tabletop.. “Anne.”

“Anne? Anne is what’s stopping you?”

This time the pitch does catch his attention, finally forcing Gilbert to look up and face his friend. 

Bash looks furious. And underneath that, betrayed.

“Glad to know where Delphine and I rank,” he says.

As if to highlight her neglect Dellie starts to wail. 

Bash stalks out of the room, and Gilbert can hear him talking to her, trying to sooth her, and then arguing over something with his mother. But still, she cries for a long time.

And instead of going to help Gilbert stares at the table, listening to the raised voices. He’d completely forgotten Mrs. Lacroix was even here. Was she listening to Gilbert ramble? Was she judging him?

He should leave, get out of the house, give Bash a chance to sort things out with his mother and cool down. But go where? To the ruins where his friends are celebrating? He’s never felt less like attending a party. And besides, in the mood he’s in he’d probably say something stupid to Anne and make everything ten times worse, if that were even possible.

Instead he stumbles out to the orchard. 

The sun has slipped below the horizon and the air is rapidly cooling off. The scent of the ripening fruit mingles with the cool humidity, sinking deep into his lungs. The smell of it, and the sounds of the crickets bring him back to his childhood. Walking the rows with his father, waiting impatiently for the first apples to ripen. When he was a child he’d loved this time of year. It always felt full of potential. The excitement and hard work of the harvest, and the start of the new school year and the thrill of all the new things he could learn. 

Three generations of Blythe’s have harvested apples from these trees, or at least the ancestors of them. Trees grow old and die too, or get struck down by disease, and then get replaced with new young saplings. 

But there hasn’t been that sort of replacement of the people. His family has faded and died without adding and expanding. It’s dwindled to one.

In the spring when he and Bash had needed to take out a few of the trees there wasn’t anything to replace them with. He’d had to buy rootstock, but that had felt right. Imported root stock, just like Bash.

And now he’s made Bash so angry he couldn’t even look at him. 

The cool breeze suddenly feels as cold as ice.

When he returns to the house it’s dark and quiet, and Gilbert hopes that perhaps he can just slip in, go upstairs to bed and put off dealing with any of this till the morning. Maybe just pretend none of this ever even happened. Avoid Bash forever.

His hand is on the knob when the voice comes out of the shadows of the porch.

“No you don’t.”

Gilbert stops and sighs. 

“Sit down Blythe.”

So he sits. Settling himself on the wooden bench next to Bash, despite wanting to be anywhere but here.

“Now. We’re not even going to talk about you suddenly trying to change the plan again. And abandoning me when I need you here. We aren’t even going to go there right now. You are going to explain to me why you think it’s such a wonderful idea to take off to another continent, just to marry a girl you don’t love and get an education you don’t need.”

Gilbert opens his mouth to protest, on which point he’s not sure, but Bash holds up a hand forestalling him.

“We’re not going to talk about Anne right now either.”

That’s a relief. It leaves the one thing that Gilbert is actually sure of.

But Bash isn’t done. “Was it not two weeks ago when you sat with Muriel Stacey at our kitchen table and made lists? Lists of colleges to apply to after Queens? I seem to remember you talking about there even being some scholarship to a college right here in Nova Scotia that you said had ‘an excellent medical research program.’ So please do explain why you need to go all the way to France?”

Panic flutters through him when he realizes he can’t. He can’t think of any good reason at all.

“It’s the Sorbonne,” he says weakly. “It’s better…”

“The truth Blythe. What are you running from this time.”

A hot wave of shame rolls through him, all of his guilty secrets feel exposed. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he manages. “You’re right. It was a stupid idea. I know that. I’ll go back tomorrow and tell Winifred, tell her father that.” Anything to avoid this conversation. He begins to stand, wanting to escape all of this and go wallow in shame in his own bed, but Bash grabs his shoulder, pushing him back down. 

“Oh no, we are having this out now. All of it. What were you thinking?”

The weight that’s been sitting like a brick on Gilbert’s chest since Mary died suddenly gets ten times heavier, ready to crush him if he gives it a chance.

“I wasn’t,” he manages to say. “I wasn’t thinking.” He was doing anything to avoid thinking. Or feeling. “It’s better if I don’t.”

The silence hangs between them, despite the sounds of the crickets. The breeze lifts again and Gilbert shivers, despite the sweet orchard scent of it. Or maybe because of it. 

“Sometimes,” Bash says, his voice not more than a whisper. “Sometimes it hurts so much that I’d agree with you. But you’re wrong. You can’t just stop thinking or feeling. You end up making fool decisions if you do.”

Gilbert forced a chuckle, even though he feels more like crying. “I guess you’ll use this as an example for the rest of my life.”

“No. Not this one.”

They sit there in the quiet for a while. Long enough for the twitchy feelings of panic to fade, and the block on Gilbert’s chest to ease up a little. 

“I wish you’d just talk to me,” Bash says. “You don’t have to keep it all inside, or run away. You can talk about how you’re feeling.”

Just like that all the pressure and pain comes back and something snaps. A huge sob rises up in Gilbert’s chest and he can’t keep it down.

“There’s another baby with no mother growing up in this house,” he gasps out before it overwhelms him. “Just like me, she’s just like me.”

And then he’s leaning on Bash’s shoulder crying about all of it, everything he’s tried to put away in a box for the last few years all decides to burst out in one humiliating blast. 

He’s not even sure what he’s babbling about, and Bash is making soothing noises and rubbing his back like he does with the infant asleep inside and it’s all so deeply horribly shameful. It’s good that it’s so dark, the moon hiding it’s face. He’s not sure how he’ll ever be able to face Bash in the light of day again. 

He must make that sentiment heard, because Bash snaps “Stop apologizing! Haven’t I told you enough times that a real man isn’t afraid to show his feelings? You were the one to tell me I was allowed to scream and cry! Have you forgotten that? And you’ve seen me crying enough to fill a river over these last few months. I don’t know what makes you think you’re so different.” The acid in his tone is enough to cut through Gilbert’s anxieties, and the sobs ease off on their own. But he doesn’t move away, and Bash leaves his arm curved across Gilbert's back. It’s nice to just have the comfort of touch right now. It’s been a long time since he’s received more than a brief hug. 

“I get so scared that history will repeat itself. What if something happens to you? What if she’s left an orphan like me?”

Bash snorts. “This is really what’s got you so worried?”

It’s one of them. And the easiest to talk about right now. “Sometimes,” is all he says.

“I worry about it too,” Bash admits. “But I know that she’s got you. She’s got other people who care about her. Just like you did. She wouldn’t be alone.”

Gilbert snorts. “But I was alone.”

“You’re telling me that after your father’s funeral if you had’ve gone over to the Cuthberts and asked to stay a while they wouldn’t have taken you with open arms? Or the Lyndes, or I’m sure any number of others around here.”

The thought is strange and confusing. Were there people who would’ve taken care of him? “I never really thought about it.”

“Oh yes, instead you applied your patented technique of not thinking and running away.”

“Hey! You can’t complain about that time!”

Bash laughs. “Okay, you’ve got me on that. But don’t do it again okay? Talk to me.”

“I’ve made a real mess of things haven’t I.”

His chest feels lighter but that doesn’t stop the dread curling in his stomach about the situation with Winifred.

“One step at a time. I think you’ve had enough for tonight. Go on up to bed and we’ll talk more tomorrow.”

Gilbert wants to argue. He’s already sitting here with his every weakness and failure spread on the porch in front of him. Why not get it all over and done with now instead of dragging out the agony? But a wave of exhaustion hits him. He’s overheard girls at school like Ruby Gillis talking about crying themselves to sleep, and never really understood how that would work until now. He feels like he’s cried so much there’s nothing left inside him. 

He barely manages to get his boots off and stagger up into the lingering heat of his bedroom to collapse on the bed. 

He sleeps straight through, not waking when Dellie fusses, or when Bash and his mother have a not entirely whispered argument about who will see to her, and not even when the sun peeps over the horizon and Bash has to see to the milking. 

It’s the first time he’s truly slept in months. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

The sun was mocking him. It felt horribly unfair that after his misery last night Gilbert should wake up with such a pounding head and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. 

It took a moment for him to peel his eyelids open and realise the sun was too high and the room was too warm, and he hurried out of bed, trying to ignore the clanking in his skull. The cow must be feeling quite put out with him, and that always made her twitchy and much harder to milk.

He found that if he moved at a shuffle it jolted his head a little less, although tackling the stairs that way was a bit of work, it was better than the way he normally did it.

He stopped short when he saw the pails of milk already in the kitchen. 

Bash passed behind him, slapping him on the back in a way that rattled his his head in a truly painful manner, before sitting himself down at the table, which was covered in a bewilderingly impressive spread of food.

“I figured you might need a lie in this morning so I saw to the cow.”

Gilbert can’t think of what to say to that so he sits down too. Carefully. 

“How are you feeling then?” Bash asks.

Gilbert rests his head in his hands. “I hate you.”

A crash comes from the area of the stove, and Gilbert stares for a moment trying to figure out what has Mrs. Lacroix looking so petrified. 

“Mother,” Bash says sounding exasperated. “He’s just feeling poorly, he’s not about to turn us out of the house.”

I”m sorry!” Gilbert rushes to add. “I just have a headache because Bash kept me up late last night talking.”

“Perhaps you can fix him some of your ginger turmeric tea,” Bash adds helpfully.

Mrs. Lacroix's face travels from relief, to amused knowing, and then to annoyance. She flaps her dish towel at her son. “Sebastian! You need to take care of this boy!” She turns her back to them, busying herself with tins of herbs and spices.

Bash smirks at Gilbert’s confusion. “That’s her special hangover cure,” he whispers. “But it’ll help your head so drink it and be grateful. And stop scaring her. She’s difficult enough to deal with as it is, without her worrying we’re about to become homeless.”

“I don’t know why my head hurts so much anyway,” Gilbert mutters. 

“You lost too much water,” Bash says in a matter of fact way. “I know the feeling.”

Gilbert has only ever seen Bash drink to excess twice, so he has to assume that his acquaintance with this feeling is from the same cause as Gilbert’s.

The thought of Bash enduring many crying jags makes him feel selfish and guilty bringing attention to himself like this. He shouldn’t be making him worry.

“Bash,” he says, his voice pitched low, acutely conscious of the woman on the other side of the room. “I’m so sorry. I should never… that is I won’t...“ and to his horror tears start to well in his eyes again. What is this? Has he been broken? Is he going to burst into tears at the slightest emotion now? 

But Bash just pulls him into another extended hug and lets him cry. Again. It doesn’t go on too long this time. But sitting in the sunlit kitchen, aware of an almost stranger being their to see it all makes it several degrees more embarrassing, but Bash seems unconcerned, keeping his hand on Gilbert's shoulder even as he turns back to Dellie when she begins to fuss in her highchair.

A steaming cup of rather unusual smelling liquid is slid in front him. Gilbert takes a cautious sip. He can hardly call it tea, since it tastes like anything but tea. Bash had said something about ginger, but there’s a lot more than that flavoring it. Almost like curry, but different to that too. It coats his tongue with a warmth that has nothing to do with temperature.

It’s soothing though, and starts to ease the hammering in his head. He helps himself to a second cup from the pot, hunching over it to breathe in the steam. 

His stomach is still tight with anxiety, but he’s also very hungry. Eating slowly he carefully clears the plate of perfectly fluffy scrambled eggs, resolutely ignoring the memories of the last time he’d eaten such a breakfast at this table. There see? He could feel things without bursting into tears like a blubbering baby. 

When he finally looks up Mrs. Lacroix and Dellie are gone. All that’s left is Bash sitting there, watching him. Judging him. 

“You don’t have to keep an eye on me,” Gilbert says peevishly. “I’m not going to sneak off to Paris if you look away for a second.”

Bash looks amused. “What are you planning on doing then.”

Gilbert turns away, staring out the open window. The day is already getting warm, a day he would've called hot before he felt the heat at those tropical ports of call they’d been on on the ships, but this is their own sort of island warmth, a soft heat, of harvest and plenty. It feels good. LIke a gentle embrace. Like home. Like something he’s not ready to leave, or at least get too far away from.

“I suppose I need to get down to the train station and take the 10 o’clock to Charlottetown and put an end to all of this.”

Bash looks uncertain. “You know that if you really wanted to do this I’d support you, right? If you really loved this girl.”

Gilbert chokes out a laugh. “Bash I barely know her!” It all seems so ridiculous now. “I honestly don’t understand why her parents want me to marry her anyway.”

Bash frowns. “I’ve been wondering about that as well.” The seriousness in his voice is concerning.  


“I didn’t even really think about it until now actually…” 

“Another example of your excellent no thinking policy?”

“You said you wouldn’t tease me with this forever!”

Bash merely smirks. 

But the unease of the thing rolls through Gilbert again. “Why then? Why are they offering me all this?”

Bash sighs. “I can only think of two reasons why people like that would want you for their daughter. Either this girl is desperately in love with you and her parents are the sort to indulge her, or…”

The idea of Winne being in love with him makes everything feel so much worse. And then there’s that or…

“Or what?”

Bash winces. “Far be it for me to slight the honor of a young lady who’s been nothing but pleasant to me,” he pauses, hesitating over words he doesn’t want to say. “But, yes, I can think of a reason why a girl would need a husband in a hurry, particularly one who can’t complain too much about things because he owes her father a lot of money.”

It takes him a moment. “Oh God.” The room is spinning, and Gilbert drops his head onto the table. “You know I didn’t— I would never—- All we did was go to tea I swear!”

“I know, I wasn’t meaning you.”

It’s a relief that Bash knows that at least. “Is it bad that I’m hoping that she’s in love with me and I’m about to break her heart then?”

“Not at all. I hope that too. And that she gets over you quickly.”

There doesn’t seem to be much else to say about it, so Gilbert retreats to his room.

It’s regrettable that the headache has eased, because that means he has no excuse to avoid thinking as he gets washed up and dressed for the day. His best suit is a crumpled mess on the floor where he tossed it last night. He’s not usually so careless with his things. He hangs it up, but there’s no way it will be presentable for today. It’s not just wrinkled, it needs cleaning. He’ll have to wear something else. It seems downright insulting to wear his every day clothes for such a significant interview, but he has nothing else. Yet another glaring difference between his own social station and Winifred’s. Has he even seen her wear the same dress twice?

Unlike Anne who only had two dresses for months when he first met her. And he’s not thinking about Anne right now. He pushes all thought of her back into its own dedicated box in his head. The one that’s so full it’s overflowing with all his memories of her. 

If Winifred is in love with him, surely she at least deserves his undivided attention right now. On the day he’s going to hurt and reject her. Oh he hopes he’s not going to hurt her. And oh how he hopes that he will, considering the alternative.

But as much as he tries he can’t make the pieces fit. How could she love him on such a short acquaintance? She’s not the dizzy sort of girl who imagines themselves in love with every man who smiles at her. She’s too sensible.

And if she’s found herself in a difficult situation and needs his help, can he really walk away?

“Of course you can!” Bash practically shouts, when Gilbert comes back down. “Are you crazy? You have no obligation to her,  _ especially _ if she was trying to trick you like that.”

“But she’s my friend, and if she needs help…”

“Half an hour ago you said you barely know her. It’s not your job to save her.”

Bash is being surprisingly firm on this, and it’s a little confusing. “You didn’t care that Mary had a child that wasn’t yours,” Gilbert says.

“That is completely different! I loved Mary. And she was hardly trying to pass Elijah off as mine! And even then her keeping him a secret hurt me. You must see that this would be much much worse.”

True. But it felt so wrong to think about abandoning her like that.

Bash glares. “Stop thinking whatever new foolish idea you have going there Blythe. She’s hardly going to end up in the street. Her father will find her some willing fellow that’s not you. And this is unlikely anyway. It’s probably just that she’s smitten enough to think herself in love with your pasty face.”

Please let that be true. But the guilt of it all presses on him.

“Wait right there,” Bash says, leaping up from his seat. “I’m going to come with you. Just let me talk to my mother.”

“What about the harvest?” Gilbert asks. “We can’t both take off.”

It’s not exactly true. They’ve gotten in their potatoes and corn already, since they don’t grow much more than it takes to keep the family fed. It didn't take longer than a few days. Their main crop is the apples, and they’re not ready to harvest yet. They’ve been mostly working where they’re needed on some of the surrounding farms so they can trade for workers when the apples are ready, especially since it’ll be mostly after school has started and Gilbert is away at Queens. He still plans to come home every weekend for the first few weeks, but more hands are needed than that. 

“We don’t have anything particular planned for today. And I think your entire future is more important than a day of shucking corn.”

The implication is clear. Bash can’t trust him to be a man and see to things on his own.

Gilbert hunches down in his seat, holding back the snappish comments he wants to make about not being a child who needs his hand held so he doesn’t do something stupid. Because that’s the problem. Given his track record for the last few weeks he feels exactly like a child who can’t be left unsupervised. 

That doesn’t mean he’s not going to despise every minute of it. Which is of course childish. Which only makes him resent Bash more.

Bash returns and opens the door, looking back to where Gilbert is still slumped at the table. “Are you coming then? We should be able to make the 10 o’clock train if we hurry.”

Sighing Gilbert drags himself out of the chair and slouches out the door. “I really hate you right now.”

Bash gives him a hearty slap on the back. “Good to see you’re not ignoring your feelings anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The relationship between Gilbert and Winifred never made a lot of sense. Wealthy men with beautiful intelligent daughters don't generally need to bribe farm boys to marry their daughters. Yes Gilbert is cute and kind and ambitious and all that, but he's hardly a catch for that sort of family.  
> Winifred being pregnant definitely had to be a possibility that at least Bash considered, even if Gilbert was to naive to think of it.  
> Also Gilbert is an excellent sulker.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as mareebrittenford if you want to hang out


	3. Chapter 3

They manage to catch the ten o’clock train, barely.

The stationmaster has long since gotten used to seeing Gilbert and Bash traveling together and never gives them a second glance, but to many of the other passengers they are still a novelty. An offensive one.

Usually they arrive early and board the train immediately, taking a seat at the front corner of the last carriage. Bash and Samuel, the junior conductor have some sort of uneasy truce that Gilbert doesn’t quite understand and Bash hasn’t bothered to explain, but he is always the one to collect the tickets in the last carriage, and he doesn’t give them trouble when they sit there. 

Today, because they leapt onto the train at the last second, they have to walk the length of two carriages to get to their usual spot. Gilbert would be fine to sit down where ever, but Bash persists, and in this sort of thing it’s always best to follow his lead.

To their relief the rear carriage is almost entirely empty, and the few people already seated pay them no mind. Of course as they get closer to the city more people will fill up the car, but for now they have relative privacy.

Gilbert’s relief is short lived as Bash moves to the seat directly opposite him and leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. 

“Now. Tell me what you’re going to say.”

Gilbert has been trying not to think about it. “Do we have to talk about this here?”

Bash gestures to the empty seats around them. “Who’s to hear?”

He’s right. Gilbert knows that unless the train is exceptionally full (unlikely in the middle of the morning in the middle of the week) no one will sit near them. It reminds him of how isolated Bash actually is. He’s not sure if Bash would be allowed on the train if he were alone. 

What he said last night strikes Gilbert anew. In a time of need Gilbert can call on any number of people in Avonlea and they will help him without question. How many would do the same for Bash?

The Cuthberts of course. They can be relied on. 

Gilbert still remembers how nervous and excited Bash had been about going to Christmas dinner with them that first winter. He’d quizzed Gilbert about them relentlessly beforehand, wanting to know what sort of white people invited a strange black man to sit down at their table with their young daughter.

Gilbert had sure it was simply an example of how kind people in Avonlea could be. Bash had concluded differently. He’d thought that the sort of people who adopted orphan children must be more generous and open minded than most.

Open minded was never a term Gilbert would’ve applied to the Cuthberts before that, but Bash was right, of course. It was Anne that had made the difference. She was like a social barometer for judging how people would treat Bash. People who loved Anne were accepting of different sorts of people. First the Cuthberts, then following in their wake the Lynds. It was amusing to realize that no matter how outspoken and opinionated Mrs. Lynd was, she could be brought into line by Marilla Cuthbert. 

Next to accept Bash was Jerry, the Cuthberts farm boy. Matthew had sent him over to help with their spring plantings, and he’d taken to Bash like a long lost brother. His family was kind and generous and hard workers, some of the few that would take work around the farm with the knowledge of Bash being in charge. It was Jerry who had brought them a midwife for Mary, his aunt who spoke hardly any English, but certainly knew her way around childbirth.

The Barrys had been the most recent to come around, and while their acceptance looked to being the most lucrative, it was certainly less than whole-hearted. Diana Barry was certainly not allowed to come calling at the house, even in the company of Marilla and Anne.

And that was the sum total of people Bash could call on for help once Gilbert was gone. A handful of elderly people, one dirt poor Arcadian family, and one wealthy man who probably saw them as more of a financial investment than friends. 

Even if Winifred was the love of his life Gilbert had no business going off to France and abandoning the man who has become like a brother. 

“Well?” Bash asks. “Any ideas at all?”

Gilbert scowls at him. “I’m still thinking.”

“Think faster. I’ve only got this train ride to shake any fool ideas out of your head.”

He really is annoying when he gets like this, and it makes Gilbert feel every year of difference in their ages. 

“Fine. I’ll tell her the truth. I’ll say that I’m not in a position to marry at this time. I have responsibilities with the farm and my family, and I have many years of schooling ahead of me. I’ll say that I’m sorry that I gave the impression that I was free to marry.”

Gilbert is rather pleased with the speech, especially coming up with it off the top of his head. It doesn’t place any blame and should let her down as kindly as possible.

Bash flips him in the forehead. 

“Ouch!”

Of course that’s the moment the conductor makes his presence known, clearing his throat as he towers over them.

“Tickets please.” he says, his eyes sliding over Gilbert without making direct eye contact. He focuses on Bash as Gilbert fumbles in his pocket for their tickets.

“I heard about Mary. She was a good woman gone too soon.”

Bash nods stiffly. “Thank you Samuel.”

The hint of softness disappears. “And I’ll thank you not to behave like that on my train.”

Bash breathes out heavily. “Of course.”

They sit in silence as Samuel makes his way around the rest of the passengers. Once the door closes behind him Bash turns back to Gilbert, taking up the conversational thread as if it had never been dropped. 

“Are you planning on speaking to the father or the daughter like that?”

“Oh well— Mr. Rose was the one—“

“And here’s the first fool notion. That girl is expecting a proposal. There’s no way you’re going to walk into that house without being ushered straight in to see her. And she’s going to look at you—” Bash widens his eyes and bats his lashes in a most disturbing manner. “And you’re imagining that she’s going accept some ramblings about responsibilities?”

“It’s the truth though!”

“And what if she thinks you’re just asking for a long engagement?”

Oh no. That would be so much worse. “What am I supposed to say then?”

Bash grins. Rather evilly. “The real truth. The one that came to your mind first, long before you remembered anything about _responsibilities_.”

It’s mortifying to be reminded. And— “you said we weren’t going to bring her up,” he hisses. He can see that Bash very much wants to flip him in the head again, but manages to restrain himself.

“I'm not telling you to name names, but you need to tell this girl the blunt truth. That you don’t want to marry her because you don’t love her.”

“That’s such a horrible thing to tell her though!”

Bash shrugs. “It’s a lesson to you. Don’t let things get this far with a girl you’re not in love with.”

That is indeed a blunt truth. “I didn’t know I had,” Gilbert says slouching down in his seat feeling surly. 

“It’s still a lesson worth remembering.”

“Oh don’t worry. I’m definitely not going to forget this.” Gilbert has already decided. If Anne doesn't want him he’s going to die alone. He’s never going to take another look at a girl besides her. At least not until he’s done with his schooling. 

“Okay. Fine. I’ll say I’m sorry. I don’t love you. I don’t want to marry you. Blunt enough?” The words feel like ashes in his mouth. It’s physically painful to imagine saying such a thing to a girl who is expecting a marriage proposal. 

But Bash nods his approval. “Good enough. Just don’t chicken out.”

Gilbert feels like another good cry is in order. 

At least it will be all over soon. 

Surely.

\---

The house reminds Bash of the plantation. 

Not superficially of course. This house has it’s foundations firmly set in Canada. It has the sort of closed up look he’s gotten used to seeing here. Designed to bear the long hard winters and keep it’s occupants warm. It's narrow porch is so different to the open colonnades and wide verandas of the big houses in the tropics.

But it projects the same sort of energy. Status and power.

Gilbert had looked very small as he disappeared inside. Bash wishes he could’ve gone with him. But some paths a man has to walk alone. He’s capable of it. Hopefully.

If he comes out engaged he will be going straight back in again.

No true friend would do anything less. 

Bash prides himself on being true. Honest. Reliable. It’s strange really. All those years spent in the belly of a steamship being true didn’t count for much. All they cared for was if the coal got shoveled and he kept his mouth shut. Which he did not on too many occasions. His whole life he’d found trouble that way. By being too bold. Too confident in his own right to exist. 

The ships had beaten a lot of that out of him though. Ten years of grinding labor with punishment for the slightest infraction had a way of doing that.

But he’d had enough of the bold and true left in him to leave the lonely white boy with the wounded eyes at the mercies of some of the other men on the ship. Who knew that would lead his life to this place.

All Bash had thought at the time was that the kid, despite his obvious hurt, held a spark of something. Hope. Possibilities. Who wouldn’t want to be around someone like that?

So he’d taken him on, brought him into his crew. In the belly of the ship if you didn’t have a crew you were bound for the worst of everything. A man alone was going be blamed for every mistake, pushed aside in line for meals until there was nothing but slops left, and possibly subject to far worse things. The boy’s white skin would’ve protected him for a while, but not forever.

Bash’s crew wasn’t much. Just a few men who didn’t have the stomach for the bullying and cruelties many of the others went for. They banded together to watch each other’s backs and kept their heads down. 

They weren’t pleased when Bash brought them a white boy. Neither was anyone else really. Yet somehow he’d ended up Gilbert Blythe’s keeper. 

He’d already been making plans to leave the ships. He’d been saving his wages for almost a year already. So it was easy enough to steer the kid away from the brothels, dockside taverns, and gambling dens that all existed to suck every last coin out of the pockets of men like him on their brief shore leaves. 

Instead they spent their time on shore exploring the cites. Blythe had looked with the wide eyes of a tourist. Bash had looked with the assessing eye of a man trying to find a home. A place where he could have a wife and family. A future. 

But the future looked grim all along the Atlantic coast and through the islands.

He never even considered the frozen north.

Yet here he was. Standing in what around here was considered summer heat, in front of a mansion that threatened to swallow his new brother whole.

He looked around for an unobtrusive place to wait. He knew that standing about in front of a place like this would lead to trouble if a constable happened along. Which they always did in neighborhoods like this.

He spied a pretty little park further down the street and took a few turns around it’s graveled paths, still keeping an eye on the house. By the third loop he was beginning to worry. On the fifth he saw Gilbert emerge, looking even more dour than he had when he went in. He looked around and his face turned a little desperate when he couldn’t spot Bash.

Bash grinned, and quickened his step. Didn’t need him along on this little trip eh? It still wasn’t sinking with that boy that it was okay to ask for help. Especially when handling things on his own led to him avoiding handling things at all. 

Which is no doubt how things with this girl had gotten to this point. Bash hadn’t been watching out for his little brother properly. That was going to be different now.

When he caught up to Gilbert he didn’t miss the way his shoulders relaxed. 

“How did it go?” 

Gilbert hunches in on himself. “It was awful.”

Not good. “You didn’t—”

“Oh no. I did it. But it was terrible. Worse than I expected.”

It’s over and done. That’s a weight off. Bash pats Gilbert on the back and steers him in a different direction. 

“Let me buy you a beer and you can tell me all about it.” 

It was ironic that after spending so long avoiding the dockside taverns in every port Bash had discovered that they were the only places in Charlottetown that would serve him and Gilbert together. 

He led Gilbert to their usual place, a bar a little further off the docks that had fresh beer and decent food. The lunchtime rush was easing off so they were able to get a table at the back without too much trouble. 

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Bash asks after a few minutes of watching Gilbert focus on his bowl of stew with the single minded intensity of a starving man, or one who didn’t want to talk.

“I guess her father thought it was all settled after he talked to me. Her mother was off meeting with their minister to start planning everything.”

Bash swallows his astonishment with some difficulty, but he doesn’t want to interrupt because it seems that now Blythe is talking he’s not stopping.

“She cried. I made her cry. At first she was just angry with me, but then she started crying and I felt so guilty. It’s wrong and cruel to lead a girl on like that. She said she’d be humiliated.”

“It sounds like her parents led her on far more than you ever did,” Bash says carefully. “It sounds like she swayed you though.”

And it sounded like she had the sort of parents who gave her everything she wanted. It certainly put his mother’s claims of him spoiling Dellie in the shade. 

“I was so glad to be out of there. I feel so free. But I am the one who wronged her though, aren’t I? At least in part. No one was making me do any of this. I liked her. I liked how she paid attention to me and flirted and made it all easy for me. I never had to think. My God—” Gilbert took a big gulp of his beer. “None of it was real at all was it.”

He’s swinging like a pendulum, but Bash is happy to watch him go back and forth. “Her pretty face is real enough,” is all he says.

Gilbert is in no mood to be amused.

“I felt bad, but then she started saying things about Anne. And you, sort of.”

“You brought up Anne? What were you thinking?”

“ _I_ didn’t bring her up. She did.” And the guilt is gone from his face, replaced by a grim expression.

“No wonder you were in there so long. And what did she have to say about Anne?”

Gilbert took a great shuddering breath and dipped his spoon into his bowl, pausing in surprise when it met the empty bottom, and then took another gulp of beer instead.

“She said a woman knows when she has a rival. And then… “ He shook his head. “She knows so little about me that she thought Anne and I had spent our whole lives growing up alongside each other?”

Bash hid a smirk. He could lay a lot of faults at Miss Rose’s door, but on this particular count he would bet that the fault lay with Gilbert avoiding talking or thinking about Anne when he was paying court to the other girl. He’d seen how ridiculous the boy had acted when he’d been forced to introduce the two of them at the fair.

“And then she said some nasty things about Anne. As if Anne would ever try to trick or manipulate someone!”

In Bash’s experience people tended to project their own inclinations onto others. It said a lot that Miss Rose had at the last of it assumed that in the battle for Gilbert’s heart her rival had resorted to some underhanded tactics. She may as well have confessed to her own misbehavior. He wondered again what her angle was, but he supposed it no longer mattered. Just as long as Gilbert truly was well clear of her.

“Do you think there will be any trouble for us?”

Gilbert seems confused by the question. Innocent babe.

“Rich people like that have ways of making you sorry if they think they’ve done you wrong,” he elaborates.

Gilbert looks queasy at the thought. But then he shakes his head. “I don’t think so. They’re going to leave for Paris. Winnie and her mother will be gone in a few weeks. I assume her father will follow as soon as his business is tied up. They’ve only been here in Charlottetown temporarily it seems.”

“That’s a blessing then.” Bash means it. He makes a mental note to thank the Good Lord for it later.

“She asked me not to tell anyone that things were over until she’d left town,” Gilbert adds. “To save her from the humiliation.”

“That seems reasonable enough…” As long as that was all it was.

“I don’t mind. It’s the least I can do. It was just that, I said I would be telling my family, and she was confused? She asked what family I had left, and I said you, and she was… I don’t know. She said that servants talk and that if I must tell you I should impress upon you the importance of keeping things quiet.”

And there was another piece of the puzzle of that family solved.

Bash is suddenly very tired. He drains his beer and stands. “Are you ready to go home?” Because he certainly is done with being here.

Or course those rich people hadn’t actually believed it when Gilbert had introduced him as family. Not really.

Their sort liked to say that their personal servants were like family. As if family were people you paid a pittance to fetch and carry and clean up after you. There were probably people back at the plantation wondering why his mother would ever want to leave them, since she was like family.

They’re both morose and silent as they take the train back. It’s only when they’re in sight of the house that Gilbert finds his voice again.

“I did do the right thing, didn’t I?” he asks, sounding so small and young. 

“I think you did. I know it was hard. But better to be honest now. And don’t go courting girls for fun again.”

Gilbert jumps down and starts unharnessing the horse, as he usually does when they arrive home from a day away, to allow Bash to head in a few minutes earlier and see Dellie.

“That’s the thing though,” Gilbert says as Bash starts for the house. He sounds cheerful suddenly. “You know what I thought? I thought all of the meeting her parents and such was for them to decide if I would be allowed to court her. It’s funny. Because even after all of this I never did get to the point where I asked for a courtship.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole fic is me working through a lot of thoughts I have on the 3rd season, and one of the things I found really odd was how easily the Rose family accepted Bash. So here you have my particular head canon of that, and also a bit from Bash's pov where I couldn't help delving a bit into why he'd befriended Gilbert initially and what it was really like on the ships, and the racist attitudes of the time. 
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at mareebrittenford.tumblr.com
> 
> Hope you enjoyed reading!


	4. Chapter 4

The long summer days drag. 

It’s the last few weeks off school, and there’s plenty of work to be done of course. During summer Avonlea works at double time to make up for the inactivity of the snowy winters. It feels like there’s not enough daylight to get everything done, even though twilight stretches till after nine o’clock. 

Gilbert throws himself into the work. It makes his body tired, bruised, aching, and covered in blisters that never quite get the chance to heal.

But his mind. His mind won’t rest. Repetitive manual labor gives his mind too much time to remind him of every stupid thing he’s done. 

He’d gone to beg new books from Miss Stacey, knowing that if he can get absorbed in a new topic then he’ll be able to distract himself. He’d told her he wanted to get ahead for Queens. Surely a teacher would be proud of her student for having the ambitious plan to take the accelerated course and complete the two years of study in one?

She’d laughed at him. 

“All the more reason to rest your mind now and enjoy your summer!” she said. “You have so many years of study ahead of you Gilbert. Take this time to relax. You’ll be glad of it in a few months.”

She didn’t understand that his mind didn’t rest. If he didn’t provide it with something to puzzle over it supplied things from his memories. And right now those things weren’t ones he wanted to ponder over. 

When he was a child his father would teach him songs and poems as they worked in the orchard. Which meant that now he was the one who knew all the songs. Except the french ones. He did like to work alongside the Baynards when they came for plantings and pickings so he could learn their songs, but the only one of them around right now was Jerry, who seemed to have forgotten how to sing and instead worked in grim silence.

Hard work usually provided a certain sort of filter in his mind, letting him think things over slowly. But the entire debacle with Winifred felt too raw and recent and filled with his own flaws. There was no soft filter.

At first it was easy enough to dwell on how he felt tricked and trapped. Pushed by the entire Rose family into a situation where he felt like he’d taken things too far to not marry her. He knew he’d been wronged.

But a few days of picking corn forced him to let go of the sense of betrayal and take responsibility for his own stupidity. No one had made him invite Winifred to tea. Repeatedly. He’d wanted to. He had been flattered by the attention she paid him and enjoyed the smiles and flirtations of such a

pretty girl. She made him feel important. And she hadn’t tricked him into a shallow relationship, she’d told him right up front that they weren’t to talk about anything real or serious.

He was also ashamed that after Mary died he’d more or less forgotten that Winefried existed. He’d said goodbye to her that day he’d gone to Dr. Ward’s office and that was that. She hadn’t tried to contact him or applied any sort of enticements. No, it was him who renewed things when he went to exchange some of Dr. Ward’s books and she’d been in the office. 

All she said was that she’d missed him. 

She was so… convenient. As if she only existed when he wanted her flattery and attention and easy to put aside when he didn’t. Never asking difficult questions or pushing him to talk about things he’d rather leave undisturbed. 

And then at the fair! He had felt so important strolling around with such a beautiful girl on his arm, as she was a prize he’d won at the shooting booth. People had looked at him without pity for once.

A week into picking corn and he remembers back to when he’d gone ashore from the ship the first time. He’d just made friends with Bash, and for some reason he can’t quite remember they’d had plans to go to a different part of the city than the other men. 

They’d come across a man running a shell game. He kept up a stream of amusing banter while his hands rapidly moved the pieces around, and it seemed like an easy game to win. 

But Bash had held him back, and Gilbert had been too intimidated by his wise and mature new friend to gainsay him. So they’d watched as someone else stepped up and then lost a shockingly large amount of money.

“It’s rigged,” Bash had explained later. “Those games are always rigged. He was moving the marker around between the shells any time he felt like it. People only win those games as a hook to get you in. Then you lose it all.”

Bash had lots of opinions on gambling. Games of chance was a brand new experience for Gilbert, since gambling, like alcohol, was not something anyone in Avonlea admitted to indulging in. It looked like tremendous fun, but Bash was always holding him back from participating. He seemed determined to rid Gilbert of any illusions by teaching him all the ways that games of cards and dice and shells could be rigged and cheated. It certainly took all the fun out of the idea of participating. 

“If everyone knows the game is rigged, why do they play?” he asked one day as they sat in a tavern watching a dice game. Bash had just finished explaining what loaded dice were.

“They enjoy it I guess.”

That didn’t sound right. Gilbert had witnessed first hand the moaning misery of shovelers the day after shore leave. Losing their entire pay packet didn’t look like fun at all.

“What I mean is they enjoy the thrill of it all right up until they realize they’ve lost all their money.”

Gilbert hadn’t understood at the time. 

But now maybe he does. 

He’d been enjoying the game, participating willingly, right up until the moment it all got serious. And real. 

He’d been risking a lot more than a months wages. He’d been so very lucky that once again Bash had been standing next to him as a voice of reason.

And just like when he was on the ship, he both chafes under Bash’s guidance, and wonders what he’d do without it.

Especially since Anne is ignoring him. 

Not just ignoring him. Actively avoiding him. And he has no idea what he’s done to earn her ire. Which is nothing new. It seems like he spends half his life with Anne mad at him for things he doesn’t understand.

But this feels different. More serious.

“Has it occurred to you that she doesn’t know where she stands with you?” Bash asks. “You make her uncomfortable. As far as she knows you’re still seeing the rich girl from Charlottetown, and yet here you are making eyes at Anne more than ever.”

Anne must think him the worst sort of cad! Another thing to feel guilty about. Especially since he has to admit to himself that he never really stopped thinking about her in that way. His first clear thought about marrying Winifred had been pain at the thought of having to give up Anne forever. He’d been more or less courting another girl and yet paying romantic attentions to Anne! What sort of man was he to do such a thing?

It is over now. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t treat Anne badly. She knows it, and she’s angry with him. He’s certain of it, when, a few days later he manages to catch a moment to speak to her outside the general store, and she immediately brings up Winifred, like a talisman against evil held in front of her. And he’s the evil she’s warding off.

The whole thing sickens him. If Anne ever had any romantic inclinations towards him no doubt he’s killed them dead with such clear evidence of his perdifry. 

The worst of it all is how much he just misses talking to her. He misses their intellectual sparring sessions. Her passionate arguments and need to save the world. The next year at Queens stretches ahead him in a gray pall of loneliness, having Anne always nearby but forever withholding her brilliance and joy from him.

And the truth is that it’s no more than he deserves.

Bash is amused by his dire predictions. “You know that assuming things is what got you into this mess, right?” he says, as they watch Anne rapidly retreating down the main street of Avonlea.

“Perhaps I should write her a letter…”

“Perhaps you should be a man and have an actual conversation,” Bash says, and drops the sack of flour from his shoulder to the back of the cart, and they both climb onto the seat. Gilbert takes up the reins and calls to the pony, and the cart starts moving, passing through the town quickly. 

The day is warm and the sun is shining and if Anne hadn’t just refused his offer of a ride home Gilbert could almost be happy.

“Perhaps I should throw myself at her feet and confess my feelings and beg for forgiveness?”

Bash gives him such a look. 

Gilbert assumes that means that’s out too. 

“Why aren’t you telling me what to do then? What am I supposed to say to her?” he demands. He’s so frustrated.

“Oh no,” Bash waves his hands. “You need to handle your own romances without me.”

“Says the man that told me what to say to Winifred and practically walked me to the door to make sure I did it.” 

“That was a one time situation. I’m not going to be following along behind you straightening out every mess you get yourself into. You need to figure this out for yourself.”

That actually sounds… hopeful?

“So you still think I have a chance with her?”

“Maybe. I would recommend giving her some time, and not going with the throwing yourself at her feet quite yet.”

“But you just told me to talk to her!”

Bash sighs in a very tired way. “Try talking to her as a friend, and work your way up to the rest. Give her the best of yourself, and maybe she’ll come around. And that’s all the advice I have for you.”

The best of himself. 

It’s an unsettling idea. 

What is the best of Gilbert Blythe?

The person Winifred had been trying to mold him into? Superficially conforming to her rules of behavior while constantly seeking sneaky ways of subverting them?

The person who had been praised since childhood for being polite and studious and always saying please and thank you?

Or perhaps the person who did his duty and didn’t cause a fuss even when things were terrible.

He can’t shake the feeling that when all those social conventions were peeled away there was nothing of any value left inside of him.

Gilbert has such a strong determination to do something of value, to be a person of real worth. Is it because he has no worth beyond what he accomplishes for others?

And he suddenly, desperately wants to talk to Anne about this. He’s sure she’d have something profound to say about whether people have worth outside of what they accomplish. But it’s not exactly the sort of thing he can just walk up and start talking about. At least not when he’s being so thoroughly ignored.

The next time he’s in a room with her for more than a few moments is when they all gather in anxiety and nerves in Ms Stacey’s kitchen to hear the results of the Queens entrance exams. 

Gilbert has no false modesty about his academics, and feels quite confident that he’s accepted, and most likely qualified for the accelerated program. But the anxiety humming in the room is infectious. Or perhaps it’s being near Anne that’s making him so jumpy.

Still when Miss Stacey throws the results down on the table and everyone rushes to see he manages to keep calm enough to hang back. A few more seconds of anticipation won’t hurt him. And it gives him time to work his way closer to Anne.

“Anne and Gilbert tied for first!” Someone shrieks, and Anne grins at him so widely. Just like one of her old smiles. 

“But they printed Anne’s name first!” Someone else says. 

And she laughs and throws out her arms. Probably not as an invitation to hug her, but Gilbert has been starved of Anne for weeks. He wraps his arms around her waist and spins her. She squeals and laughs in his ear, clinging to him for a few moments, before she remembers herself and pulls away, turning to embrace the other girls, who have all been accepted. Even Diana!

The whole room is one of giddy excitement when they realize they’ve all passed. Ms Stacey is as giddy— if not more than— the rest of them. It’s most likely a record for Avonlea, at least Gilbert can’t remember any more than two or three students have ever been accepted in a single year.

Everyone scatters after that, rushing home to tell their good news.

Anne lingers for a moment talking to Ms Stacey and Gilbert sees his moment, and waits for her outside the door.

“Anne? Can I walk with you?” he asks when she emerges.

She jumps, and he curses himself for startling her.

“What?”

It takes him a moment to find his tongue again. “Can I walk with you? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

The look she gives him is so wary it hurts his heart. 

“Please?” he adds.

She sighs and starts walking. 

He supposes that’s as close to a yes as he’s going to get, and he jogs a few steps to catch up. Of course, now that he’s got her time and attention all the things he’d planned to say slip out of his head.

“Any time now,” she snaps. 

“Are you planning on taking the accelerated program?” It was not a planned topic, but he is curious if they’re going to be sharing classes.

“Yes.”

“Will you study with me then?” Another unplanned request, but something he just realised he desperately wants.

It stops Anne short. “What do you mean? Won’t you be off at the Sorbonne, living all your dreams with your new wife?” she demands.

“Is that what everyone thinks?” Gilbert is confounded. How does everyone know about that? This is far worse than he expected.

“People overheard you talking at the fair,” Anne says. “If it was supposed to be some secret then you shouldn’t have been talking about it in public.”

Gilbert should’ve expected that. Avonlea ran on gossip after all. 

“People keep asking me questions about it all,” Anne continues, kicking a rock off the path with a certain viciousness. “As if I know anything about what you’re doing these days.”

Gilbert can’t make out if she’s jealous or if she’s put out because he hasn’t confided in her. Either way, Bash is annoyingly correct once again. This is not the time to confess all his feelings. But it certainly is the perfect time to explain everything else. It’s been two weeks since his non-proposal. Surely he doesn’t owe Winifred silence longer than that?

“I’m not. Getting married that is. Or going to Paris. I’ll tell you about it all if you want?”

“Why?” she asks. She’s big on the single word responses today. You’d never guess at her usual vocabulary.

“Why is the gossip wrong? Or why do I want to tell you about it?” he asks, delaying. She just looks at him. 

Gilbert hangs his head, not liking the way that look is making him feel. It’s his turn to take out his emotions on innocent rocks.

“Bash was pretty angry with me too. I’ve been a fool, not thinking about my actions. I know I’ve hurt him. I guess I hurt you too. I’m sorry for all of it.”

“Okay, “ she says. Cautiously.

And then it all comes out. The whole pathetic tale. He’s been a fool. A stupid selfish fool.

Anne laughs at him after he says that for maybe the fourth or fifth time.

“Don’t get too carried away. It sounds like there was plenty of foolishness to share around.”

“True. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t take responsibility for myself.” And being responsible is something he’s supposed to be good at.

Anne shakes her head. “Are you sure though? It’s such an amazing opportunity for you. How could you turn all of that down?”

“I’d be giving up too much. Far more than I’d ever gain.” And that is a truth he feels deep in his bones. As much as he’s been wracked with regrets these past two weeks, he’s felt not one moment of regret about turning down what the Roses had offered.

“But she was so pretty, and sweet, and you must have liked her a certain amount…”

Gilbert chokes back a laugh. “Are you trying to convince me? Are you telling me I should’ve married her because she’s pretty? You’re the last person who I’d thought would be advocating marrying without love.”

Anne won’t look at him. 

“Besides, even if I did think I could, I don’t know, come to love her eventually, which I doubt, I still wouldn’t want to be leaving here so soon. Bash needs me, and I don’t want to miss seeing Dellie grow up. My whole life and everyone I care about is right here. I’m not ready to leave Avonlea completely.” Surely Anne must understand that.

They’re in sight of Green Gables when Gilbert gathers his last scrap of tattered courage and stops, turning to face Anne.

“Anyway, you didn’t answer my question. Are you going to have time for me once we’re at Queens?”

“Sure. I’m not sure why you’re making such a big deal about it though.”

“Firstly: Did you already forget we came first on the exam? Out of the entire island? Us? Nobodies from a tiny unimportant village? And the same village? Everyone is going to be after us to best us. We have to stick together.”

That draws a smile. “And secondly?”

“Well… you’ve probably noticed, but I’m not very good at making friends.” He risks reaching for the end of one of her coppery braids, just for a moment enjoying the silky feel of her hair, before giving it a gentle tug to make his point.

She smirks. “I certainly hope you don’t intend to pull girls hair and call them names to get their attention at Queens.”

“Maybe not. But that was the last time I tried to make a new friend. And look how long it took me to get you to the point of sometimes tolerating me. I only intend to be at Queens for a year. So I don’t have that sort of time.”

Anne rolls her eyes. “You left for six months and came back with Bash. So I think your friend making abilities work just fine.”

“Ahh, but he did all the friend making there. Not me.” Gilbert is not joking. Bash is willing to befriend anyone given the slightest chance. He was just the lucky beneficiary. 

She still looks skeptical.

“Seriously Anne. I don’t want to lose you. I’ve lost so many people. I can’t—” He will not cry right now. He won’t. 

She hugs him. Just reaches out and puts her arms around him as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “It’s okay. I understand. I miss her too.”

It’s funny. For once it doesn’t feel empty or wrong to have someone say they understand. So many people claim to understand, and so few do. But right now Gilbert feels a fleeting moment of truly being understood, and he clings to it. He clings to Anne’s slight form like a life buoy.

When she finally pulls away he doesn’t see any embarrassment or judgement in her face. Her eyes are wet too. 

He stares for a moment before he remembers that he’s keeping her from her family, who are no doubt anxiously waiting to hear the Queens results.

“Agreed then?” he asks.

“I’ll make you a deal. Studying with you makes sense since we’ll be in a lot of the same classes, but you need to accept that I will be the one to beat you in the end and win the Avery scholarship.” Anne grins and offers her hand to shake.

“Oh no. Sorry.” Gilbert grins back. “I will be beating you. Fair and square.”

Anne attempts to scowl, but it slips from her face after a moment. “Study buddies?” she offers, still holding out her hand. 

Gilbert takes it. “Study buddies. The teachers won’t know what’s hit them.”

***

Anne stops on the porch and watches him cross into the fields, heading towards his house. There’s a happy bounce to his step, which is probably the result of his— their— amazing exam results. She feels giddy herself. 

First! Out of all the island! Miss Stacey had told her that she should expect to do very well, but this! Proof that she was good enough, not just for their tiny schoolhouse, but for the whole province!

But she can’t resist thinking that part of what has Gilbert stopping to wave to her from the top of the rise is the same thing that’s adding to her effervescent joy.

Things were right between them again. At least on their way to being right. 

She’s spent the better part of the summer missing him and hating him and regretting him. He was right when he said he’d hurt her, but he didn’t seem to grasp the depth of hurt and rejection she’d been feeling. Which was good she assures herself. If he’d thrown himself at her feet and pledged undying love she’d have done her best to hurt him as much as he'd hurt her. She’d imagined it all often enough. But now she can see how bitterly she would’ve regretted damaging their relationship beyond repair. 

But he'd come to her with something better than the opportunity to vent all her hurt feelings. He’d offered her his humiliating truth. And it had hurt to hear it. To know that all that time that she’d thought something special was happening between them he’d been already seeing a girl who in his words was ‘pretty and sweet and didn’t make a fellow think too hard.’ Oh that had cut to the bone. It was everything that Anne knew herself not to be, and she hadn’t been able to look at him. She's sure she'll end up crying about that later tonight when she's alone.

But she also can comfort herself with the fact that he’d refused Winifred, even with the added enticement of wealth and his dream of studying at the Sorbonne (although how he thought that would work when his French consisted almost entirely of Jerry’s songs...) 

He had also come to her hoping to fix their friendship. Despite her determination to ignore him and forget he’d ever existed. He’d persisted and pushed his way past all her prickles because she mattered to him. She’d only ever seen him so open with her one other time, when Mary was dying. And this time there was no terrible tragedy putting so much pressure on him that he cracked open like a nut in a press. 

This time he’d opened up willingly. And it was because of that Anne knew she wouldn’t be able to help forgiving him. She was mostly there already. Because he may not love her the way she loved him, but he’d shown her that she mattered to him a whole lot. Certainly more than a pretty girl who didn’t make him think. 

Anne wasn’t going to just forgive him. She was going to help him. For as jokingly as he’d said it she sensed he really believed that he wasn’t good at making friends. And considering it she saw that he really didn’t pal around with the other boys, or get involved in their silly games. People liked him well enough, but he always kept a distance, stopping them from really becoming friends. That needed to change. She was going to help him have more true friends than just herself at Queens. Starting with a roommate. Moody would be the best choice. Perhaps she could get Gilbert to go talk to him tomorrow...

“Anne what are you doing standing about out there?” Marilla called from the kitchen, where she’d been cooking up a storm in anticipation of celebrating Anne’s acceptance to Queens. “The results weren’t…” she added hesitantly.

Anne laughed, bursting inside. “The results! The results were wonderful! I placed first! Can you believe it? All those students from Charlottetown and Summerside who went to fancy schools and had tutors and it didn’t matter! Gilbert and I beat them all!”

“Gilbert?” Marilla asks, raising her eyebrows. She knew very well that to mention Gilbert Blythe this summer was to provoke all sorts of dramatic behavior from Anne. He hadn’t been mentioned at Green Gables for weeks.

“Yes! Gilbert and I tied for first! But I’m going to be beating him from now on, don’t you worry!” Anne glanced at the dishes spread around the kitchen. “I was just thinking, you have so much food prepared, and it only seems right to share it. Would it be alright if I ran over to invite Gilbert and Bash and Hazel to come celebrate with us? Since we tied?”

“They probably have something of their own planned—”

“I’ll tell them to bring it over!”

When Marilla nodded her assent Anne dashed out the door, leaving the room almost spinning in the wake of her energy.

First place! Marilla could hardly take it in. Who would’ve thought it of that ungainly orphan child from three years before? And now it seemed in addition to that wonderful news Anne has made up her differences with the boy, meaning Marilla can have access to that lovely baby girl again.

The Cuthbert family has been blessed today indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've increased the chapter count again! But it is all written at this point, so expect the weekly updates to continue.
> 
> Hopefully this provides enough angst for everyone to go on with. I kinda wanted to write Gilbert putting his foot in it and Anne tearing into him the way she should've in the show. I felt like he really missed out on dealing with any sort of consequences from Anne, and they were sorely needed. But hey, he's suffering enough in his own mind here!
> 
> Also I really noticed in the show that Gilbert really didn't have any friends besides Bash. The other boys seemed to admire him, but they weren't truly friends. He didn't even really let Anne in much, despite the presumably close relationship between the two families. So I'm working from that and his abysmal behavior when he first met Anne to hypothesize that Gilbert really doesn't know how to make friends. 
> 
> Hope it's as fun to read as I'm having writing! and come find me on tumblr as mareebrittenford if you want to chat!


	5. Chapter 5

Queens College is not like home.

Gilbert hadn’t expected it to be. But he also hadn’t expected it to be such a shock. He’d traveled extensively, and lived in all sorts of conditions, many of them odd and uncomfortable. As long as the beds in the boardinghouse weren’t hammocks he’d figured he’d be fine.

But it was a different sort of uncomfortable.

It’s hard to live in a boarding house packed with strange boys, each of them coming complete with their own (often competing) sets of personal dramas and dreams. 

He’d lived with a large group of men on board the steamship. But this was worse. The boys are so much louder and so much more entitled. As if they feel if they make enough noise about their petty concerns then someone will finally cater to them the way their mothers used to. 

Gilbert certainly has a head start on them all in that respect. They seem so painfully young and naive.

He was lucky to have been able to secure Moody as a roommate, instead of the uncertain fate of rooming with a stranger. Unlike some of their housemates Moody is taking his education seriously. His goal of entering a theological college after Queens means he needs to keep his grades up. Additionally he seems unwavering in his intention to court Ruby, so there’s no agonizing over girls either. All in all he’s a steady and studious roommate. At least he appears to be after the first few weeks. 

It feels a bit odd to have the younger boy he’d more or less dismissed as foolish on the way to becoming a good friend. Gilbert has Anne to thank for that. She was the one who pushed him into asking Moody to room with him..

The first few weeks of school have been hard enough. The accelerated program is already intense, and the school schedule overlaps rather inconveniently with the apple harvest. He didn’t feel comfortable making Bash handle it entirely on his own. The Baynard clan provides plenty of laborers, but it’s only Bash’s second harvest. So Gilbert has been taking the train home immediately after classes end on Friday and not returning until Monday morning, barely sliding into his first class on time. 

At least today is the last time he’s going to have to make this particular dash. And luckily it’s English, one of the core classes he shares with Anne. 

He slips into the room just as the teacher is shutting the door, and she frowns at him. “Sorry Ma’am, it won’t happen again,” he gasps, and ducks into his seat, right next to Anne, where she has already set up his materials for him. He slides an apple across to her as thanks, one of the small thin skinned pink and green ones that don’t keep very well, so are a seasonal delicacy.

Exhaustion dogs him through the classes of the day, and when he gets back to his room and sits at his desk it feels impossible to concentrate. But he needs to organize his mostly nonexistent notes for his meeting with his study group. The one he’s in only because Anne put him in it. He opens his text book in front of him but the words blur and he puts his head down for just a moment…

By the time Moody wakes him and he scrambles into the library the study group is already breaking up. They’re at their usual table in the study room. You have to reserve them by the hour and the hour is almost up.

“He couldn’t even bother to show up,” one of the boys— that loud mouth, Jackson? Johnston?— is saying. “We’re just carrying him at this point. If he can’t handle the pace he should drop back to the regular program.”

“Anne said—” one of the girls— Sylvie— cuts in.

“Yeah Anne said a lot of things. But you’ve seen how they are. She’s carrying him the most out of everyone! Did she take his exams for him too? No wonder they got the same score.”

Gilbert burns with embarrassment, and wants nothing more than to slip away and never return. He can study alone from now on. It’ll be harder, but he’ll manage.

“I’d kick him out right now—”

“But Anne would probably leave too and just make a new group,” a different voice cuts in, a more authoritative one, Priscilla. “And you don’t want that. She’s too useful.”

“And pretty,” says the other boy Edwin. “I know you like looking at her. Too bad she’s practically married.”

The conversation descends into mutterings. But Gilbert can’t slip away now. What if they do kick him out and Anne ends up losing her study group? He can’t let her hurt her academics because of him.

He steps around the bookshelf and is met with their surprised and slightly guilty looks, and Jackson’s hard stare. 

Anne’s not there, so it’s only the four of them. Jackson might be full of talk, but Gilbert knows very well that this group was organized by Anne, with people she chose. It’s why it includes the two girls, Priscilla and Sylvie, even though the accelerated class is mostly boys. And why Jackson is even here. Anne had wanted the other boy, Edwin, in their group and he apparently came as a package deal with his cousin Jackson. Amusing considering the way Jackson had been talking. If anyone in the group needed to be carried academically it was Jackson. He probably resented that time and attention going to anyone else.

But stirring up trouble for Anne wasn’t Gilbert’s plan here, so he bit back any smart comments in favor of peacemaking. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t get here in time,” he says. “I’m sure Anne told you all that I’ve been going home every weekend to help with the harvest, so I’ve been quite useless.”

Sylvie smiles a little, and Edwin nods. At least those two aren’t mad at him. Jackson appears unmoved, and Priscilla gives him a hard look.

“But it’s all done now!” he hurries to add. “Or close enough that my brother can handle the rest alone. So I don’t need to go home again for a while, and I’ll be here studying with everyone else. Don’t worry. I’ll be pulling my weight.”

Jackson looks dubious, but the others seem willing to give him a second chance. 

Anne rushes up as they head for the door. 

“I have reserved the books for Wednesday!” she proclaims. “Gilbert! You made it,” she says in surprise. Great, even Anne thought he was dead weight now. 

“Not really. I fell asleep after class and only just got here,” he says. “But don’t worry, I’ve just been explaining to everyone that I don’t need to go home at weekends any more, so I’ll be here from now on.”

“Oh good. I was getting worried about you. You’ve been looking so tired,” she says. She slips her arm through his as if it’s perfectly natural, and doesn’t let go when they all split up to go their separate ways out front. Gilbert doesn’t mind. As exhausted as he is he’s perfectly happy to walk her back to her boarding house. With his frantic schedule he hasn’t gotten a moment alone with her since they got here.

“I was wondering…” she says, giving him a nervous little look. “Do you have a date for the dance next weekend?”

Gilbert had barely been aware that there was a dance let alone find a girl to go to it with him. He vaguely recalls Moody nattering on about corsages or some such thing but that’s about it. But still, his heart rate picks up. Does Anne want him to ask her?

“No,” he says carefully. “Do you?”

“Oh yes!” she blushes. “Remember I told you about Cedric who came to call on me two weeks ago? He asked me.”

Gilbert tried to conjure an image of this Cedric who he now hates with a black loathing, but he comes up blank.

“Oh,” is all the response he manages. 

But Anne isn’t paying attention. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind taking Josie?” she asks.

“Josie?” Gilbert can’t imagine anything much worse than having to take Josie to a dance, unless it’s while simultaneously having to watch Anne dancing with the evil Cedric.

“Yes, two different boys asked her, but she told both of them she already had a date, and we were all wild with wondering who it could be, and then yesterday she just started crying because she made it up and she’s going to be humiliated.”

The workings of the female mind are mysterious at the best of times. But at least with Anne it followed some sort of logic, once you take into account her proclivity for getting into the most bizarre scrapes. Josie Pye however is utterly unfathomable.

“She sounds like she deserves it,” he says.

“Please Gilbert?” Anne says, her eyes big and pleading. “It will ruin her entire year if she doesn’t have someone to take her.”

It’s not the pleading eyes that do it, he assures himself. It’s just the reality that if Josie believes her social life is ruined she’ll more than likely take it out on Anne. 

“Fine,” he sighs. 

His first college dance and he’ll have Josie Pye on his arm. All his dreams are coming true.

***

“So tell me Josie,” Gilbert as the two of them hover near the refreshment table. “Which of these fellows were so unbearable that you’d rather be here with me?”

She gives him a nasty glare. “None of your business.”

That suits Gilbert fine. He takes a moment to look around the dance hall and pretend he’s here with someone else. It could be quite nice. Romantic even. The ceiling is high and the room is lit with fancy electric sconces all down each wall. On a raised dais at the other end of the room a fairly decent orchestra is playing. Out on the floor a dance is just ending, and all the girls in their colorful dresses lined up opposite the boys in their dark suits makes a pretty picture. He wouldn’t mind being one of them. At least it would give him something to do.

He gives Josie a sidelong glance. She’d explained already that as her date he was expected to dance at least two dances with her, and no more than three. Her other dances were to be left open for other partners. She’d given him no choice in how many, or which dances they’d be sharing, and told him she’d already put him down on her dance card for his three dances. But in a decidedly un-Josie-like manner she’s been almost hiding herself behind him any time another boy comes near. 

He’s relieved when Edwin Stewart from the study group comes over. He’s distinct for his lack of a girl on his arm. 

Gilbert politely introduces Josie to him. “And where is your date?” he asks.

“Oh I brought my cousin. She’s out there dancing, the one with brown hair and a pink dress,” he gestures in a vague unconcerned way, and Gilbert can see at least half a dozen girls that match that description. It doesn’t seem to matter much to Edwin who sounds like he has an excess of cousins who need things from him.

“May I have the pleasure of a dance?” he asks Josie instead. 

Josie clings on to Gilbert’s arm more tightly. “He’s your friend, right?” she whispers.

“Um yes?” Gilbert responds, conscious of how rude she's being.

She offers her dance card, but doesn’t let go of Gilbert. 

Edwin graciously doesn’t notice her less than friendly behavior. “Aha! I see all your waltzes are already claimed! Smart fellows. I'm putting myself down for the dance after next, if that’s acceptable?”

She nods, and then the orchestra strikes the first notes of the next dance, and she’s excusing them and dragging Gilbert out onto the dance floor. This must be one of the dances she’s so graciously decided to share with him. 

It’s a waltz. He’s never actually danced one in public and it’s been almost a year since Mary got it into her head to teach him. Oh well, it’s probably a good thing to practice it with a girl he doesn’t care about impressing.

It does however force him to hold Josie in his arms and gaze into her eyes for an extended, awkward period of time. In silence, as Josie doesn’t seem inclined to talk as she stares determinedly at his ear. 

Gilbert sighs. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?” he asks.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Josie says, lifting her nose.

Gilbert rolls his eyes. “Oh definitely. You rejecting a string of suitors I can believe. But the way you’ve been tonight? Something is wrong with you, and you’ve dragged me into it. So out with it.”

She gives him a poisonous glare. “You first.”

“What?”

“You want me to tell you my secrets? You can spill a few of your own first. Like where your fancy English debutante disappeared to, and what is going on with you and Anne.”

Gilbert clenches his teeth. If there was anything he wanted to discuss less with this girl he can’t think of it.

She smirks. “I thought so.”

They circle ineptly for a few more moments in silence. Most of the other couples don’t seem much more skilled, and one pair blunders into them, the boy grabbing Josie’s arm to keep from falling. Instead of unleashing her sharp tongue she gasps and cringes against Gilbert, before she realizes herself and straightens, giving Gilbert another glare as if it’s all his fault. Something is really wrong with her.

He sighs again. It's not as if anything she wants to know is a secret. “Fine. Miss Rose, the girl I was seeing a few months ago, has left for Paris with her family. I don’t expect they’ll be returning any time soon.”

Josie stares for a moment in surprise, before her natural instincts take over and she gets a sharp edge to her smile. “And you weren’t invited to come along? Poor Gilbert.”

“I was actually. But I declined.”

She gasps. “You’re joking. You _declined_? Why?”

“I thought this was all common knowledge by now,” he mutters, feeling his face start to flush. “You could’ve just asked Anne or Diana if you were curious. I didn’t want to leave the island right now. I have responsibilities.” 

She looks disbelieving. 

“Fine. I didn’t love her.”

Josie grips his hand painfully tight and yanks him in closer. “Are you telling me you turned down that beautiful rich girl for Anne?”

Gilbert is starting to panic, Josie’s eyes are as sharp as steel, and he can’t manage to lie. Especially not about how he feels about Anne. “I ahh— I— umm— well.”

“And yet you’re at this dance with a girl you loath while she dances with an insipid idiot.”

He follows Josie’s line of sight to see Anne dancing with Cedric, who Gilbert is pleased to note, is a far more incompetent dancer than himself.

“He’s insipid?” he can’t help asking. 

“Oh the worst,” Josie says with a conspiratorial grin. “The dullest fellow who’s called so far. He has lots of advice on choosing the perfect traveling trunk. It’s the family business you know. A trunk making factory. He’s very excited to become a trunk factory clerk when he graduates. He expects to work his way up quickly.”

“Makes apples sound fascinating.”

“At least you can offer food. Trust me, he’s no competition.”

Gilbert suddenly realizes who he’s gossiping with. He straightens away from her. “I never said I was competing.”

Josie rolls her eyes. “You didn’t have to.”

She switches her gaze back to his ear. “You know what Jane was telling us before this dance?”

“What?”

“She was telling us about how Prissy had been telling her about how scandalous waltzing could be. How quite a few boys use it as an opportunity to let their hands wander,” she scrunches up her face. “And all the girls laughed. Like it was _funny_ . Like that would be a _thrilling_ thing to have happen.”

It takes him a moment to understand what she’s telling him. And the fact that Edwin said all her waltzes are already claimed. And her nervousness every time a boy approached her. He wants to smack himself, and all the girls for that matter, for being so oblivious to what Josie is frightened of.

“Am I dancing every waltz with you?” 

“I gave Moody one. You’ll be dancing that one with Anne.”

“I will, will I?”

“If you’re smart and act fast you will.” Her conspiratorial grin is back like the vulnerability was never there. “I’ll even help you.”

Gilbert is a bit dubious about the sort of help Josie Pye generally offers, but this seems harmless enough.

“And I suppose as a return favor Moody and I can screen your dance partners.”

Josie twitches a little. 

“I’ll just tell him that you girls have heard some unpleasant stories from Prissy and would like to only dance with respectful boys,” Gilbert rushes to add, feeling oddly flattered that she’d honored him with her confidences, in her own roundabout way.

“And your friend Edwin? Is he a respectful boy?”

“I’ve only known him a few weeks, so I can’t say for certain, but I think so? Anne likes him, and she usually brings the true side out of unpleasant people.”

Josie flushes at that. 

“I’ll keep an eye on you the whole time just to be sure,” he continues, ignoring her reaction.

She scoffs, as if that’s hardly necessary, but Gilbert resolves to keep an eye on her anyway. And the conversation seems to have eased her, or he’s getting better at waltzing, because the rest of the dance is almost… fun?

The whole evening is more fun than expected. Josie, as promised, makes sure he gets to waltz with Anne, and he dances with several other girls, not only from Avonlea, but a few friends of friends he is introduced to. 

Josie relaxes as the evening goes on, and by the time they’re ready to leave she’s abandoned Gilbert to walk ahead on Moody’s other arm as she and Ruby squeal together over all their conquests.

Gilbert is happy enough to walk alone, but he’s even happier when a different arm slides through his.

“Where’s Cedric?” he asks.

“Oh his boarding house is in the opposite direction,” Anne says. “So I told him you and Moody were quite capable of seeing us home. Where’s Josie?” she asks her pitch dropping with concern, and he wonders if she’s as oblivious to Josie’s fears as he’d initially assumed. 

He gestures to the group in front of them.

“Oh good,” Anne says. “I think she had fun with you. She’s not as tough as she acts, but I knew I could count on you to take care of her and make her feel safe.”

He tilts his head wondering if this is something all the girls have caught onto, or if it’s just Anne that’s more perceptive. She’s hunched her shoulders a little and she’s clinging onto his arm a little bit too tightly in a way that’s troublingly reminiscent of how Josie was earlier.

“Anne,” he asks before he really thinks, “has anything like that ever happened to you?”

Anne shakes herself as if coming out of an unpleasant reverie. “Of course not! Luckily I’ve always been too ugly to draw that sort of attention.”

Ignoring how utterly untrue her comment about her looks is, Gilbert still feels like she isn’t quite telling the truth. And it stabs at him that he’s never stopped to consider how bad her life probably was before she came to Avonlea. He thought he’d learned his lesson about considering people as conveniences, but the guilty truth is that when life felt very gray to him she had appeared as if designed to lift his spirits, and he’d not considered quite where she’d sprung from. He really doesn’t want to think about it now. But he can imagine what Bash would say about that.

“I think you understand how Josie feels,” he says, picking his words very carefully, and keeping his voice low. “Because I think there’s been a lot of times in your life where you didn’t get to choose what happened to you, and people hurt you because they could.” 

She doesn’t respond, just grips his arm a bit tighter. 

“You don’t have to talk about it, but I’ll listen if you want to.”

She leans her head against his arm in a way that makes him want to just pull her into a proper embrace, but he has to settle for putting his hand over hers on his arm. 

“Not now,” she whispers. “But… maybe sometime.”

They walk that way back to her boarding house. 

She kisses him on the cheek and whispers ‘Thank you,” before she disappears inside.

He’s not sure if she’s thanking him for Josie (who has by now forgotten him) or herself. 

Either way, the first dance at Queens has been a success.  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't plan this chapter but after a bit of encouragement from the ever helpful jacksparrow589 I decided to rearrange this section, and voila I wrote this chapter yesterday. Since I am impatient once a thing is done I figured no one would complain if I posted it.
> 
> I didn't like how Josie's assault was treated in the show, more of a plot device for Anne to get herself into another drama, with very little focus on Josie herself, especially the longer term fall out for her. So I've decided that the only boys she actually feels safe with are Moody and Gilbert. She's very well aware that they're the only ones who truly set themselves apart from the bullying Billy would initiate at school, and plus they're both safely in love with other girls!
> 
> And truly, the real test of anyone's kindness is not how you treat people you like, but those you don't. So it was fun to write Gilbert here with the date he'd least like to have.


	6. Chapter 6

Monday study group is the best way to start the week. The best part of the Queens experience for Gilbert is being surrounded by other studious ambitious people, and on Mondays and Wednesdays his favorites are all right there at the table with him. 

Somehow, right in the first week of school, Anne had managed to pick some really good people for their group. But hadn’t she always had the knack of drawing to herself the most interesting and worthy of people? It was what had made Gilbert yearn to be included in her group of friends in the Avonlea schoolhouse. And yet here he was in the thick of it. After all his watching from a distance for so long he has found that all he’d really had to do was ask.

Edwin is an excellent study partner. His main interest is in agriculture, not medicine, but they’re both taking biology and chemistry as electives, unlike Anne who’s taking the general science class. 

Even Jackson, the initially annoying cousin has turned out to be a good team member. He is here as he so self deprecatingly explained for a  _ gentleman’s education _ . Which means that his goal is to sound educated when he’s finished, not actually achieve good grades. But amusingly a gentleman’s education and what Anne considers the best general classes for a future teacher are much the same and even though Jackson complains, the competition provided by their circle, especially from the girls, has made him into a good scholar in spite of himself.

Priscilla is a steady serious student, who like Anne, has a goal of becoming a teacher. Her true gift is in mathematics though, and she’s a real boon to the group once they begin to focus on algebra and worse. 

Sylvie came to them via Cole, who Gilbert had more or less forgotten about. But he’s been living here in Charlottetown, now a ward to Miss Josephine Barry. How that came about is mysterious, but he seems very happy. He’s attending Queens along with the rest of them although he’s in the two year program. Sylvie is a great friend of Cole’s, they’d met in some art classes he takes. She’s a delicate thing, with big dreamy eyes and the floaty lacy dresses to match. Gilbert had been dubious about including her initially. Did they really need an artist? One that seemed to be here for the female equivalent of Jackson’s gentleman’s education? (A ladies education of course was more focused on arts and languages.) But Sylvie surprised them all, except perhaps Anne, by demonstrating that her true interest lay, not precisely in art, but in architecture. She is taking the accelerated class with the goal of being allowed a few years at university before she was inevitably required to marry.

The weight of social and parental expectations weighed heavily on so many of their fellow students, stifling their true ambitions. Jackson with his unavoidable future of joining his father’s business (although in that case he didn’t seem too mind much), Sylvie who’s only true hope was to put off marriage for a little while and just learn for a bit longer, and even Anne, who he knew longed to plunge into literature and creative writing, expected no more than to be a teacher in a small rural school house. His own dreams and ability to reach for them seemed so luxurious by comparison. 

“What do we have on the agenda this week boss?” Jackson asks Anne as they all take their seats. 

The study tables in the library seat eight, but by now they’ve gotten in the habit of taking the seats along each side, leaving the head and foot empty. It’s more convenient to be all facing each other, but Gilbert likes to think that it’s also because they’re a good team, and no one feels the need to try to assert authority over the rest of them. Despite what Jackson likes to call Anne.

“You know what. End of term exams.”

Everyone sighs. 

“It sure would be nice to get Easter without all the testing first,” Sylvie laments. 

“It’s only a few weeks, and then we’re three quarters done with this crazy year,” Jackson says. Always looking on the bright side.

“Well, when you put it that way,” Priscilla says. “I guess we should get to work.”

They review for the core classes they all share first, debating what they will see on their exams, and then splitting off into pairs or threes to help each other with different areas of struggle. Gilbert and Anne are still weakest in French. For some reason French was never taught in the Avonlea school house, so all the French they’d learned before Queens had come from association with Jerry and his kin. Gilbert is still mocked by his french teacher for his pronunciation and turns of phrase that are simply not proper, so Jackson is helping them. 

Even though Gilbert is getting nervous about exams, (especially the French Oral, that’s going to be murder) it’s an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon. Sitting next to Anne, learning together, competing to get the correct answer first. It’s almost like being back in the Avonlea school house.

He notes the change in energy that comes over the table before he even see’s the source. But he knows without looking that this sort of tension can be caused by only one person.

“I can see you’re all busy, I’ll just sit here quietly and read until you’re all done,” the newcomer says.

Jackson, sitting opposite rolls his eyes at Gilbert. They both know that Roy Gardner is utterly incapable of sitting quietly for any reason. No doubt he even runs his mouth in church under the guise of keeping God updated on all his exciting news.

Roy Gardner is like Jackson used to be when they first met, albeit with more charm, less inclination toward humility, and an almost obsessive interest in Anne. Which Anne seems to reciprocate. 

As awful as that is— and it sickens Gilbert for every second he has to watch her giggle and blush at the obnoxious idiot’s grandiose compliments and poetic phrases— the rest of the group wouldn’t care, except Roy has developed a (quite frankly concerning, at least to Gilbert,) overly intimate knowledge of Anne’s schedule, turning up where ever she is, in the most inconvenient manner possible.

Like now. Finding out that Anne was at the group study hall between the hours of 4 and 5 every Monday and Wednesday was no doubt simple enough. But the prat couldn’t content himself with showing up at five o’clock to prevent Gilbert from getting to walk Anne back to her boarding house. Oh no! He had to show at half past four, and spend his time distracting her and generally upsetting the focus of the whole study group. 

Anne clears her throat to get Jackson’s attention again, and to his credit he attempts to continue helping her with the simple French phrases they’re working on. 

Gilbert starts counting his head. 

_ Twenty five, twenty six—  _

“Come now, that’s not how French meant to be used!”

Wow. Almost thirty seconds this time. The fellow is getting worse.

Gilbert watches Anne’s face as Gardner begins conversing with Jackson, using French too complicated and too quickly spoken for him to properly follow, but the gist of it is that such a romantic language must be used to speak poetically, instead of the mundane discussions about uncles pens and apples gifted to cousins that they expect in their oral exam.

“The only real way to appreciate French is to read Baudelaire and Hugo,” Gardner pronounces. 

Jackson widens his eyes and shakes his head. “Too hard for you,” he mouths to Gilbert. Anne is of course not paying attention to either of them, and is blushing at Gardner, because of the thrill of his exalted presence or embarrassment for her lack of abilities in this area, Gilbert isn’t sure.

Gilbert wonders what Gardner would make of the French Jerry speaks, plain statements about farming interspersed with entertaining expletives and slang that Gilbert had discovered was almost incomprehensible to people like Jackson and Royal Gardner. No doubt Gardner would proclaim that as a mere farm boy Jerry had no true grasp of the heart of a language that was his actual birthright. 

Gilbert discovers he suddenly has a strong preference for the accent he’d picked up from the Arcadians, no matter how much he’s scolded for it.

After a few more moments of discussion Jackson has clearly had enough. “Perhaps you’d like to help her prep for her exam then? I’m sure Victor Hugo will be covered extensively.” he snaps. He gathers his books and moves to take the empty seat at the head of the table, between Edwin and Priscilla.

Gilbert sighs and turns to see what Edwin on his other side is working on. There’s no doubt in his mind that if he tries to join in with whatever Gardner is trying to teach Anne he’ll not only waste his time but be subject to petty insults too. For some reason the fellow has formed a specific dislike of him, far above and beyond any of Anne’s other friends.

“When are you going to do something about our pest problem?” Edwin mutters. 

“I don’t know what you expect me to do,” Gilbert responds. 

“I’ve heard that the Queen’s Hedge Trimmer is a rather lazy student…” Jackson drawls.

Gilbert stifles a smirk at the terribly bawdy nickname Jackson has for Gardner, as he always does. He doesn’t dare repeat it, just his luck Anne would overhear, but he can’t be judged for finding it amusing surely. And it’s really the fault of the fellows parents for giving him a job title as a name anyway.

“What do his poor grades have to do with anything? Besides making him a bad match for our Anne of course,” Edwin says.

“Oh I just think he’s unfamiliar with the library,” Jackson says. “So perhaps we could just take him deep into the stacks and abandon him with a few days rations. He may never find his way out.”

“Spin him around 5 times before you leave and it’s practically a guarantee,” Edwin smirks.

Gilbert can’t help snickering along with them. He wishes it would be so easy to get rid of Anne’s most unpleasant beau. 

Bash has been calling him a fool and a coward for months now, telling him he should just tell Anne how he feels. 

He had meant to after a reasonable amount of time had passed. Perhaps a few months. He’d absolutely intended to say something over Christmas break. But then somehow one day Royal Gardner had been there, and Anne had been looking at him like gilbert had once imagined she looked at himself, and he realized he was too late, and any confession he made would only make things uncomfortable and push Anne away.

It hurt, oh how it hurt. But Gilbert had gotten used to the dull ache in his chest. Sometimes, when it was just the two of them working together he could almost forget that this was everything he’d ever be to her. When she sat close to him and let her arm brush against his he’d almost begin to hope. And then Gardner would inevitably appear, with a snide comment for Gilbert and a flowery compliment for Anne, and the bit of hope would disintegrate into ash. 

Gilbert angles his chair so he won’t have to see them out of the corner of his eye and tries to focus on the chemistry notes he and Edwin are comparing. But Gardner won’t even let him have that.

“What are you muttering to yourself there Bert?” he asks.

Of course he’s not content just distracting Anne. He has to be the focus of attention for everyone. And manages to persist in using the most hated version of Gilbert’s name.

“Just chemistry revision,” Gilbert says, not turning around. 

“It might be a lost cause for you my good fellow,” 

Gilbert grits his teeth. He knows what’s being implied. He’s considered a bit of an oddity around school, because he never calls on girls and only attends dances with friends. He doesn’t know why anyone cares, and when asked he simply says he’s too busy with his academics to be spending time courting. Most people accept the explanation. Not Gardner though. He seems to be certain that it’s a sign of some inadequacy, and he can’t stop needling him about it. 

It seems today will be no different. 

“It will be if we don’t get this done,” Edwin says, his voice flat and annoyed. 

It gets the pest to quiet down, for a few moments at least.

Until he turns his attention to Sylvie. She’s nicer than the rest of them and tolerates him better, but even she gets tired of his questions about her history class, especially since he’s not really interested in her answers, instead wanting to ramble on about Shakespeare’s historical plays, which have no bearing on their actual history examinations.

Edwin and Jackson are glaring at Gilbert. He looks over at Priscilla and finds her giving him a significant look too.

He knows what they want. He doesn’t know why they’ve decided that it’s on him to do something, besides their certainty that Anne will naturally forgive him more easily than any of them. Little do they know of how long it took to get her to forgive him for the incident the first day they met.

But he knows something must be done. The exams are too close and they need this time to focus. Not be interrupted by nonsensical questions every five seconds. 

Anne will hate him. But he owes his friends. So he gives them a little nod. The tension around the table eases noticeably. And then he waits. Gardner’s attention always swings back to him.

“Still on the chemistry eh Bert? It is odd that a fellow like you is so interested in the academics of chemistry but has so little interest in the practical applications.”

Good lord he’d like to punch him in the face. 

Instead he takes a deep breath and turns to face him. 

“Look Roy,” he says, forcing himself to speak calmly. “We really are trying to study here, and we don’t appreciate the interruptions. Since you can’t seem to be here and not interrupt, can you find something else to do, there're other times to flirt with Anne that’s not our dedicated study hour.”

“Hey now— “ Gardner begins sounding highly insulted, but a glance around the table stops him short. There won’t be any support for him here. Even Anne is staring down at her books, refusing to look at anyone. Although Gilbert doesn’t expect that state of affairs to last long. 

“Darling it seems my presence is upsetting your little friend,” Gardner says after a long beat of silence. “I have a pressing matter I need to attend to anyway, I suppose I must take my leave.”

He gets to his feet, and hovers for a moment but Anne still isn’t looking at him, so he sweeps away on a wave of drama. 

Only then does Anne favor Gilbert with an absolutely furious look. 

Wonderful. It’s been too long since Anne Shirley Cuthbert hated him, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like.

***

Anne has never been more humiliated in her life. Or perhaps she has, but that doesn’t reduce how much of a fool Gilbert has made her feel right now. How dare he act like he has the authority to send her friend away?

And now he’s taking the coward’s way out and refusing to look her in the eye. In fact all of them are avoiding eye contact, and it’s utterly demeaning. Are they all thinking she’s a silly frivolous girl too distracted by flirtation to focus on her studies? 

“Anne,” Syvie says. “You said you needed some help with your art appreciation classwork?”

The silence around her makes it clear that everyone is waiting to see what she does. The others might not be as familiar with her temper as Gilbert is, but they know enough.

And that’s what makes her rein it in. She’s not the foolish little girl they’re all imagining. She can be mature and dignified. So she takes a few breaths and then forces a smile onto her face. “Yes I do. I find this modern French art a little bewildering.” 

As soon as she says the words she’s embarrassed. She’s had enough of discussing the French for one afternoon, but the words are out and Sylvie is reaching for her notes to take a look at exactly what she’s studying. 

The others start to talk amongst themselves and the spotlight is off her, for now. 

But Gilbert Blythe is not getting off so easy. 

Anne expects to find Roy lingering in front of the library, waiting to walk her home so she can sooth his hurt feelings, and she’s honestly not looking forward to dealing with that when her own are so bruised, but he’s nowhere to be found. It sends a pang of worry through her chest. Surely he won’t break with her over this? He seems to take up and discard friends without much concern. 

Roy being angry with her isn’t something she’s experienced yet, and it’s not something she looks forward to. He’s normally unfailingly cheerful and light hearted. It’s one of the things she likes about him. Life seems less serious with Roy around. He’s always there to help her relax, and break her out of her stress and worry over exams and the future. 

Anne is well aware of how much it’s costing Marilla and Matthew to send her to Queens for this year. $150 is such an unimaginably large sum. She knows that if she wants to continue on after Queens at university then she has to earn her own way. For the last year, ever since Miss Stacey told her of it, the Avery scholarship has hovered in the distance ahead of her, like an illusive will-o-wisp, enticing her onward with it’s whispered promises. Of course she can teach in school houses with her certificate from Queens, but with a proper degree so many doors will open up to her! But there’s only one scholarship, and it goes to the best student of English and literature. 

Initially she’d worried about competing with Gilbert for it, but soon realized that it would be useless to him, he has no interest in studying the humanities (such a perfect term to describe all the beautiful things people have made!) and is focused on earning some of the other academic prizes and smaller scholarships that are available for science studies.

But even without his competition there’s plenty of other students who are applying themselves. And lately Anne hasn’t been quite her best. Her grades, while still excellent, have slipped a little. And it seems her friends are happy to lay the blame at the feet of her lovely light hearted Roy. He can’t help but be what he is, and she will simply make sure everyone understands it.

But when she looks around everyone is leaving, ignoring her. Gilbert has disappeared all together, the coward. He always walks her back to her boarding house after study sessions. At least he did before Roy started making time to do it himself. 

“Anne, would you mind if I walk with you?” 

She turns to find Edwin hovering. 

“Oh. Of course. I was just…” She doesn’t know what she was just doing, besides fretting.

He offers her his arm, which Anne takes. 

Walking with her hand on a boy’s arm is truly one of the oddest things about being sixteen. Boys just hold out their elbow and expect her to hook her own arm though it. And it’s all perfectly proper, to be walking so close together with arms linked. The first time Gilbert had done it she’d barely been able to pay attention to what he was talking about, too aware of his proximity to focus on anything else. 

By now she should be used to it, but the experience with someone new always takes a moment to get used to. 

She already knows that Edwin smells nice and isn’t the sort to take liberties, the two major concerns in this situation, but she’s never been quite this close to him before. In fact out of everyone in the group Edwin is the one she’s worked with the least. Their areas of study don’t overlap much, and where they do well, Gilbert is there also. 

She can only imagine one reason why he’d ask to walk with her today.

“Please don’t be mad at Gilbert,” he says. 

“Of course he’s using you as a go between, too cowardly to face me,” she spits. 

“No, no, it’s not like that at all!” He seems genuinely distressed and Anne forces back her reflexive desire to yell at him and stomp away. Edwin is no Gilbert, ready and able to stand up to any storm of temper. 

“How is it then?” she asks, well aware that the ice in her voice is intimidating.

“We’ve all tried to say something, and I understand if you aren’t concerned about such high marks if you’re going to be married to such a rich fellow right after you graduate anyway. It’s a bit disappointing, but I understand. For the rest of us though, especially me and Gilbert, these grades are the difference between getting to university or not, and we can’t have Gardner interrupting our study sessions all the time!”

He keeps talking, but Anne’s mind is whirling too much to pay attention. Is she letting her grades slip because she’s expecting a proposal upon graduation? Is that what she wants? Is that even what Roy wants? She’s acutely aware that despite all the attention he’s paid her over the last few months he still hasn’t formally asked her to court, or intimated that he would like to come visit Green Gables and meet Matthew and Marilla. He’s entirely a creature of this sphere, and neither he nor she has made any effort to include him in any other part of her life. The thought of introducing him to Jerry feels quite horrifying. Would he lecture him about his accent and tell him he should be reading Victor Hugo? Jerry would go hysterical with glee. Beyond horrifying.

And if he asks her to give up her dreams of teaching… she can’t! But would he be willing to wait? Roy Gardner? Wait for something he wants? Her stomach churns at the very thought.

“And so we made Gilbert say something, because he sure won’t listen to the rest of us. I’m sorry that it’s upset you,” Edwin is saying, his voice high pitched and nervous. 

“I’m not angry with you Edwin,” she says absently, and the tension in his arm eases considerably. 

“And Gilbert? I know he hates it when you’re at odds,” he adds tentatively. “He’ll be quite miserable and useless at his exams unless he knows you’ve forgiven him.”

“Gilbert Blythe’s relative happiness is not my responsibility.”

Edwin sighs. “But if you forgive him then he won’t be hurt on top of the pining, so that will make him a little easier to deal with. And besides, Gardner will be after him worse than ever now, which makes him powerful grumpy. Making up with him is the least you can do for me.” 

He grins at Anne, and she wants to ask so many questions, but they’ve reached her boarding house and Edwin bids her goodnight and walks off rapidly, no doubt in a hurry to get to his supper.

Anne should get to her own. But suddenly she can’t bear to face the other girls. Instead she politely tells Mrs Blackmore that she has a headache, goes upstairs, lies face down on her bed, and cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've made these new, non canon characters to fill out their study group, and of course they come to life and have goals and thoughts and opinions... I hope it's not cluttering up the narrative too much! I have so much more about them all in my head but I'm resisting including it. It would merely drag out the angst.
> 
> The real point here is the introduction of Roy as Anne's love interest, and he's going to be around for a few chapters, until our OTC finally get it together. I wanted to do it faster, but eh, plot does what plot wants, and I just trail along taking notes. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


	7. Chapter 7

Anne is quite miserable for the next few days.

It’s as if someone has shaken her foundations. Foundations she thought she was finally building on her own. Yet all it took was one short conversation with Edwin and she’s questioning her own judgement and every interaction she’s ever had with Roy, and finding far too much of it to be unclear.

She wants to be so angry at Gilbert for forcing her to this, (because it was him that instigated things, no matter what Edwin said) but she can’t quite muster the energy for it. 

She can tell that her behavior is worrying Gilbert, he’s tentative with her, almost afraid to draw her attention to him in any way, but she can’t help it. She needs time. Time to think and sort through those thoughts.

Diana is concerned too, but is pushed off easily enough by being told that she’s had a disagreement with Roy.

“Perhaps he’s not as wonderful as he initially seemed?” she asks.

And that hurts too. Because there’s a bit of something in her dearest friends voice, that suggests that perhaps Diana isn’t as fond of Roy as Anne supposed. 

And now it feels as if everyone around her has an opinion about Roy, now that she’s listening for it. And it’s not the sort of glowing approval she expected. 

“Oh I do hope Anne’s beau brings those cakes she doesn’t like,” Jane says to Tilly as Anne trails behind them in the hallway. 

“Oh yes!” Tilly responds. “They’re delicious. I don’t know why he keeps wasting his money on things she just hands off to us though. You’d think he’d be trying to find out exactly what she likes and bring that for her instead.”

And it’s true. For months now Roy has been bringing her tarts made with hot house strawberries, that taste bland and insipid and not nearly as lovely as the ones Diana bakes when strawberries are in season. Roy doesn’t seem to notice that she doesn’t like them. It’s one small thing, but once she starts thinking on it it’s easy to think of many times where Roy doesn’t really seem to pay attention to things like that. He always acts like his opinions are the height of sophistication and Anne keeps lagging behind him. She’s been trying so hard to develop sophisticated tastes, but she can’t seem to get the hang of it.

“Has Roy asked you to the spring dance yet?” Josie asks as the two of them are donning their outwear in the front hall before school on Thursday.

Anne opens her mouth to respond that of course he has, only to realise that it’s not true. He’s no doubt expecting that she’ll attend with him, but he hasn’t bothered to make a specific request. He’ll probably make up for it by some flashy dramatic scene at the last moment, but Anne doesn’t quite like how the thought of it makes her feel.

“Not exactly,” is all Anne can manage, cringing a little. Josie has grown a lot this past year, but she’s still not above the occasional sharp barb in a person’s vulnerable spots.

“Oh, I know,” Josie says with the sort of guilelessness that implies quite the opposite. “If Roy is being a prat you should teach him a lesson. Take Gilbert. You know he’ll be happy to go with you, and since the rest of us have dates he’s left all alone. It makes me feel bad if he’s left out you know?”

Josie must have some sort of ulterior motive, but Anne feels rather inclined to ignore it. Why not take Gilbert? It seems unfair that he’s taken Josie and Diana to dances and not herself. He’s Anne’s friend far more than any of the other girls. And besides, since Cole is escorting Diana he’s borrowing Aunt Jo’s carriage. If Anne goes with Roy she won’t be able to go along with them in the carriage. Roy always insists on his own conveyance. Relying on others for transportation is far too inconvenient for him.

Gilbert however will be happy to join the others. 

“I think perhaps I will,” Anne says. 

Josie’s grin is a little bit frightening, and Anne already begins to regret her hasty words. But she’s committed now. She never has been able to back down from Josie Pye.

“Please don’t tell anyone?” 

Josie pokers up. “What is there to tell?” And then she leans closer. “Just make him actually ask you, not just agree.”

Anne stares at her. Josie is giving her advice… for some reason? “Why?” she can’t help asking.

Josie smirks. “I know you think girls should be able to do that asking and all that nonsense, but it would sound better if you can tell Roy that Gilbert asked you and you said yes, don’t you think? Makes you seem in demand.” 

Anne rolls her eyes and walks out the door without waiting for Josie. How silly and manipulative! The whole thing is a terrible idea. Why drag Gilbert into this at all? Especially with how uncomfortable things have been between them for the last few days.

Roy has also been avoiding her. 

She doesn’t miss him near as much as she misses Gilbert, despite Gilbert still being in close physical proximity, sitting at his usual desk, adjacent to hers, in all of their usual classes. 

The previous day at their afternoon study group (which did go better without Roy ,making an appearance) he’d worked with everyone but Anne. He’s obviously annoyed with her and won’t even want to go to a dance with her. He’d probably hate it more than he hated taking Josie. 

Anne is already tired when Roy appears beside her as she’s heading into the dining hall for lunch.

“My Darling,” he says, taking her hand and tucking it into his arm. “You look as lovely as ever, but perhaps a trifle tired. You need proper sustenance, not the gruel they serve here. Let me take you for a decent meal.”

Anne protests weakly, but he assures her they’ll be back in time for the next class. And so she’s led along to one of the small establishments near campus. It’s surprisingly quiet, not at all like the bustle of the afternoons and evenings, which is when she’s been here before. Always with Roy of course. She doesn’t have the sort of spending money that allows for restaurant meals.

She scans the menu a bit hazily. She has been staying up late and rising early to study. Exams begin Monday and she feels woefully underprepared. 

“Allow me my dear,” Roy says, plucking the menu from her hands. He orders for them both, and then turns to smile at her. 

“What have you been doing to yourself? You must take better care.”

Anne can’t resist that smile. “It’s nothing. Just exam prep.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know why you do this to yourself. Your genius stands alone. Your mind has no parallel. There’s no need for you to work so hard that you make yourself ill.”

Anne smiles tiredly. It’s lovely that he thinks of her that way. And she knows he means it quite sincerely. He has the odd belief that somehow the students with the highest rankings are simply naturally brilliant. He’s constantly puzzled at why Anne works so hard, convinced it’s some sort of window dressing. After all, he doesn’t even remember learning to speak French, or to read in both languages. So of course there was no struggle or study involved. And he glides effortlessly through his classes in language and literature, not needing to put any effort at all into memorizing reams of poetry, and so easily conjuring fanciful worlds in verse. Of course he also struggles to learn anything that doesn’t interest him, but he declares those subjects, like mathematics, too boring to waste his attention on.

“It’s just a little longer and then I can take the Easter break to relax.”

“Ah yes, a fey idle in your mystic woods. I’m sure you shall return from your forests with your subtle magics restored.”

“Quite so! Until then I have exams that I must do exceedingly well at.”

Roy waves his hand carelessly. “I’m certain that you’ll pass with flying colors.”

And there perhaps is the problem. She hasn’t ever managed to confide in him her terrible need to earn the Avery scholarship. Roy will never have to struggle to gain funding for his tuition. It makes her feel poor and needy and inadequate to mention such a thing in his presence. 

The food comes quickly, and Anne digs in, enjoying the ample serving of roast beef topped with a lovely mushroom sauce. The school lunches are all very well, but tend to be somewhat lacking when it comes to seasonings, and the size of the portions of meat. This food is a wonderful change. She has to eat fast though. She’s well aware that the clock is ticking and she needs to be back at school in time for her history class. Roy however is dawdling over his food, as he often does, rambling on about some picnic he wants to take Anne on. 

“I have to study,” she cautions. “But once it’s all done I’d love a picnic!”

“Dining out of doors seems like the perfect setting for your wild untamed beauty,” Roy pronounces and Anne can’t help but blush. She’s never ever been complimented in the way Roy does. Sometimes he almost has her convinced that she actually is a wild untamed beauty, instead of a homely redhead.

And then she has to overrun his gentlemanly desire to escort her back to school, because he’s barely eaten anything and she must rush to make her class. As she leaves he’s already smiling at the waitress and telling her that her blue eyes are like lapis lazuli. It makes it easy to put Edwin’s silly comments about marriage after graduation and such out of her head. Anne has no interest in marriage at this time. Roy, for all his compliments and attention hasn’t truly singled her out. He just likes making women feel beautiful and admired. And Anne has more important things to focus on than how much a boy likes her. She is going to win the Avery, and she is going to university.

***

Anne doesn’t expect Gilbert to show at the library after school. After all it’s not an official meet up like the study group. It’s just that since school started they’ve mostly both been in the library studying on Thursday afternoons, and mostly end up at the same table. Although, Anne realizes with some chagrin that she’s been a bit sporadic over the last few months. Roy has a habit of turning up after her last class and wanting her to come join him in one of the coffee shops that cater to students to talk about art and literature and poetry with his friends. It is always such a fun time, and Anne has trouble turning him down. So she’s only been meeting Gilbert on Thursdays occasionally.

It would only serve her right if Gilbert didn’t show up. If he’s found someone more reliable to study with. 

Still when she finds an empty table with only one chair, she drops her books on it to reserve it, and then wanders around for a few minutes to find another chair to jam in beside her own at the tiny table. Just in case.

And then she focuses her attention on her books, refusing to let herself watch the door.

“Hello.” It’s said very softly, in consideration of the location. And also very uncertainly.

Anne can’t help but give Gilbert a blinding smile, because he didn’t give up on her, he hasn’t run away. He’s here. And he looks confused, still standing there. So she gestures to the chair next to her. 

He grins and slides into the seat, which… this was very poorly thought out. He’s too close. Much too close. 

“Does this mean you’re not mad at me any more?” he whispers, and his breath ghosts across her cheek without him even having to lean closer. 

Anne stares resolutely down at her books. She cannot lose the equanimity she’s fought so hard to gain this last six months. It’s stupid. She’s not in love with Gilbert. It was a stupid schoolhouse crush that never came to anything. Perhaps she’s rethinking things with Roy, and maybe she’s not in love with him. But that doesn’t mean she is going to revert to her childish infatuation with Gilbert. She’s sitting here so stiff and uncomfortable because she doesn’t want to be this close to him. Not because she wants to be closer. That would be ridiculous.

“Do you want me to try to find another table?” Gilbert asks, obviously picking up on her unease. 

Yes. Yes that would be best.

“No, this is fine,” her traitorous mouth says. “Everywhere else is taken. Exam week starts Monday. Even the laziest students are here trying to cram a bit of knowledge into their heads.”

Gilbert chuckles, and begins arranging her books into a pile so he can lay out one of his own. Anne reaches to help him, and their arms tangle and brush. It’s ridiculous. There is absolutely not room for two people at such a small table. And yet neither of them backs away. A strange sort of energy crackling between them. 

Somehow once Gilbert settles himself and focuses on his notes Anne calms too. The energy is still there, but instead of spiking and sizzling it levels out into more of a pleasant hum, and she’s able to fall into a sort of focused state that she’s rarely able to achieve. Something akin to how it feels to be in the woods at home, where the words aren’t so much read as absorbed. It’s not something she’s ever been able to do here in the city. Not until now. 

The mathematical formulas Anne has spent the last twenty minutes attempting to wedge into her brain now flow in with ease. She turns to her history notes, looking at lists of dates, determined to make the most of this easy memorization state, and ignore the buzzing hum all along the right side of her body. 

“Anne, I thought you might be here!” Roy’s voice is not moderated for the library. He also looks… uncomfortable. It’s an unusual look on him. There’s a window behind where Anne and Gilbert are sitting, and the angle of the afternoon sun is such that a sunbeam is hitting him right in the face, making him squint to even see them. Which is good. Perhaps he won’t notice how close she is to Gilbert. Not that it’s inappropriate! But it is quite close. 

“Are you ready for your picnic?” Roy asks. 

Anne stares at him dumbfounded. “Picnic? Now?”

“Of course now! We talked about this at lunch.”

“When I told you that we could picnic after exams are over! I need to study, I already explained that.”

Roy looks genuinely surprised, and Anne tries to think of exactly what had been said about a picnic. She’d thought he understood that she wouldn’t be able to go out with him until after she was done with all her studying and exams? She feels bad that he’s gone to all this trouble due to a misunderstanding.

“You can come with me now. We shall simply go to a nearby park instead of driving into the country!” Roy declares, obviously pleased with his version of a compromise.

Anne is torn. She really can’t afford the time, especially since she was in a wonderful state of focus just a moment ago. But he’s gone to the trouble of planning this and she feels guilty refusing him. And a picnic does sound lovely.

She feels Gilbert move uneasily, his leg brushing against hers, and she remembers the little show down between Gilbert and Roy just a few days before. Roy may not be intending to sabotage things… but he’s doing it all the same. And it’s affecting Gilbert too.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer Roy. I simply can’t go with you today, or any day until after exams are finished. You should try studying a bit yourself.”

Roy scowls. “And you shouldn’t be so glued to your books! Besides I have something important to talk to you about. It’s not... “ he squints against the sun, clearly looking for a way to get a better angle, but there’s no place for him to sit and no way to get out of the sunbeam while standing. “I say Bert, could you give us a moment here?”

Gilbert twitches like he’s going to oblige.

“A fellow like yourself who’s never taken an interest in a girl out wouldn’t understand, but some things are private.”

Gilbert tenses, and suddenly Anne wonders if all those digs at his lack of female companionship actually bother him. She’d never thought so before. After all, he can’t doubt that he can get most any girl he wants. And he always appears so unaffected when he’s teased, even laughing it off. Yet now, what Roy is saying is making him tense as a bowstring. Anne presses her foot down on top of Gilbert’s and he freezes up. 

“No Roy. I don’t have time to talk. We are busy and you are being rude to Gilbert. Whatever you have to say can wait.”

She regrets how blunt she is, when something unfamiliar and unpleasant momentarily flashes across Roy’s face. He leaves without a word, and she’s left wondering if that was worth it. It’s not as if she’s going to be able to study now. Her mind is in chaos now and her beautiful state of focus is lost.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Gilbert murmurs. “He’ll understand. He was just annoyed that his plans were cancelled. He’s got to understand how important this is to you.”

And that’s just it. Roy doesn’t understand. And Anne isn’t sure if that’s his fault or her own. And what does it say that after months of hoping that she meant more to him than a passing flirtation, she couldn’t even tell him about her dreams for the future?

“It’s fine,” she mutters, and tries to turn her attention back to her notes. But it’s all spoiled, and her body is filled with a racing frenetic energy. She knows from experience that she won’t be able to focus again without moving around first.

“I’m sorry, I need some fresh air. I think I’ll just head back to the boarding house and finish out the night studying there.”

“I’ll walk you,” Gilbert says agreeably, gathering up his own supplies. Neither of them really needed to be in the library, but it’s one of the few places that it’s acceptable for a boy and girl to sit down and work together. They certainly can’t study together at either of their boarding houses. 

“You don’t need to— ” Anne begins.

And he smiles. “Amazingly I think it will be quiet in my room tonight. Like you said, even the worst students are hitting the books this week.”

So she aqueses, taking his arm and setting a brisk pace in the direction of her boardinghouse. 

***

Gilbert doesn’t know what to make of the situation. If any other girl had done the things Anne had done in the last few hours he’d swear she was flirting with him. Arranging things so they had to sit so close? All those little touches and bumps? And then so clearly rejecting the boy who he had assumed was near to officially courting her, right in front of him? To stay with him instead? And then there was that thing with her foot pressed into his.

But this is Anne and she has been confusing him like this since forever. And now she’s walking so fast that he has to assume she didn’t want his company and she’s in a hurry to get away from him. 

“I’m sorry,” she says suddenly. “Roy shouldn’t make fun of you for not calling on girls. We both know you could get a girl’s attention if you wanted to.”

“It’s fine. Everyone ribs me about that.”

“But he does it more.”

Gilbert shrugs. It’s annoying, but nothing compared to seeing the fellow fawn over Anne.

“Can I ask why you don’t call on anyone?” Anne asks, in a voice heavy with caution. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she rushes to add.

He can hardly say that it’s because he’s missed his chance with the only girl he wants.

“I’m not going to go calling on girls just for entertainment,” he says instead. “It’s not a game. People have real feelings that can be hurt.”

Anne has flushed red and he realises that she probably feels criticised. 

“It’s one thing if you don’t know yet, or you’re making up your mind by getting to know someone better. But if you know from the beginning that you have no serious intentions. Well, that’s… I’m not going to do that.”

Anne is silent and the spectre of Winifred floats between them. The mistakes he’d made then are still haunting him.

“And there’s no one at all you can imagine having serious intentions toward?” she asks in a voice so soft it’s barely audible.

Gilbert can’t bring himself to reply.

Which Anne interprets fairly easily. “Won’t you tell me about them?” she asks. “I promise I won’t judge you.”

“What does it matter?” Gilbert snaps. “I’ll be in school for at least six more years. Every cent I spend is money taken from the farm, I have no business calling on any girl, especially not someone so special, with so many better options. I have no time or money to treat her how she deserves.”

Gilbert is startled with how bitter he feels. But somehow watching Royal Gardner lavish time and money on Anne, when he has neither to offer, has made him feel like any gesture he could ever make would be pathetic in comparison. 

Gilbert Blythe!” Anne practically shouts. “How dare you! How dare you value yourself so low, and additionally how dare you insult a girl you claim is special? Do you really think she’s more interested in expensive gifts and fancy outings rather than your kindness and intelligence, and—” she gestures at him, waving her hand around his face, seeming to search for words, “general substance of character? I’m offended on her behalf!”

She really does seem quite indignant and it makes Gilbert smile. “I can’t ask her to wait for me, not when there’s other fellows who’ll be able to marry her within a year or so.” he can’t help adding.

She huffs at him. “Oh and she has no ambition beyond immediate marriage? No goals of her own she wants to pursue?”

“I well… yes she does. Have goals besides marriage that is.”

“Well then. What’s stopping you?”

Gilbert pauses, giving her a long look. She’s responding so passionately. He can almost imagine that she suspects he’s referring to her.

“There’s another fellow…”

“Are they officially courting? Betrothed?”

“I don’t think so.” Surely she would’ve told him if things had become official with Gardner, right?

“Then you still have a chance.”

Does he? Before today he’d have said no, but now— the giddy possibility of it teases and entices. Maybe he does still have a chance.

“What should I do? Should I tell her how I feel?” Gilbert feels that same pitching in his stomach that he’s gotten stepping onto land after weeks at sea. Like everything is in the wrong place and what should be stable and immutable suddenly isn’t.

“Maybe try calling on her, during the Saturday calling hours.”

A trial by fire. Demonstrating his intentions right in front of every girl he’s grown up with. No doubt he deserves that. The boarding house looms up in front of them, and Gilbert stops and turns to face Anne.

“And make sure you bring her a gift,” she says, with a smirk.

“You just said— “

“You don’t have to spend lots of money for a thoughtful gift,” Anne chides. “Look at all the apples you bring me. I know they don’t cost you anything really, but you know my favorite varieties and that an apple helps me study. It’s considerate. Do something like that. Think of something she’d like. Not hothouse roses or expensive candy. You do know her well enough to do that, right? You haven’t just been admiring from afar I hope?”

Gilbert can’t help but laugh. “Oh yeah. I know her.”

Something crosses her face and she looks away. “Do you have a date for the dance next week?” she asks abruptly.

Once again Gilbert has let the social functions of the school go past him without notice. “No.”

“Perhaps you should ask your girl.”

Oh he really would like to. And he’d like to be able to call her his girl. His Anne-girl. Neither seems likely. “I’m quite certain she already has plans.” No doubt Gardner has that all sewn up.

“Ask me,” Anne bursts out. 

Gilbert’s head is swimming. Is this happening?

“Please Gilbert?” She looks almost teary. And he can’t deny her when she looks at him like that.

“Will you come to the spring dance with me— Mmmph.”

Anne has flung her arms around him, despite the boarding house right there behind them and being on a public street. Clinging like her life depends on it. He can’t help but close his arms around her and fold her small form into his. 

“Anne are you alright? Is something wrong?”

“Just need a hug,” she mutters, her voice muffled against his coat, not letting go. Luckily they’re in the heavy shadows at the edge of the building, and out of view of the front windows. So he relaxes and enjoys the sensation of Anne in his arms. 

Finally she eases away from him, letting him get a look at her face. She looks so vulnerable. He can’t have her go inside looking like that. But whatever is going on in her head she won’t appreciate prying questions, so he searches for a way to lighten the mood.

“I feel I need to apologise in advance. I’ll only be able to bring you a hothouse rosebud as a corsage.”

It gets a small smile out of her. “How uninspired!”

“Sorry! Moody does the ordering.”

“I suppose it’s a white rosebud?” 

Gilbert nods. 

“Don’t worry. I can make it look like a choice.” 

She starts for the front steps, and then turns back, puts her hand on his shoulder and kisses his cheek, before dashing inside.

Gilbert stares after her. It takes him a while to awaken from his dazed state enough to wander back to his own boarding house. 

Was that? Did she? Could it mean?

He can’t even form the proper questions. 

But maybe?

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally something is happening between them!  
> It was interesting in the show that Gilbert was so used to being the best and being admired and generally a favorite that the feeling of possible rejection sent him ricocheting into so much dumb behavior. Boy needed to learn to sit with not always being special and important and accept that.   
> Being willing to risk rejection is an important lesson for him to learn.   
> And Anne is struggling with the truth that sometimes being entertained, admired, and flattered isn't enough to build a relationship on.   
> Hope you guys enjoyed.

**Author's Note:**

> my first attempt at Anne With an E fic! But I have many thoughts about season 3 and all the moments that feel like they were missed. 
> 
> For this I really felt that Bash should've had a lot more to say about Gilbert moving to a different continent!


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